Eyes Wide Open

As it started out, I had high hopes for this Israeli film. Set in the strict Orthodox community, I thought this would be a ground-breaking movie that would show what it was like to be gay and Orthodox.

And as it continued, I hoped that Aaron, the protagonist, would find the strength to stand up for Ezri, his beloved, and to ensure that they could be together.

Unfortunately, as is typical for LGBTQ books and films, this didn’t happen. I won’t spoil it for you, but I was so disappointed by the film. I felt the director chickened out and didn’t go deep enough into the subject.

Gayby

We watched a silly, light film called Gayby. In it, a straight woman decides to have a baby with her gay best friend. Somewhat strangely, they decide to make this baby the traditional way, but they don’t have much luck at first, so the film follows them on their journey.

 

The main character does eventually get pregnant, but the question is whether the baby is actually her best friend’s or not.

 

It is an easy-to-watch film that has some funny moments. I get tired of the gay stereotypes (the effeminate guy who always has a witty remark, for example), but the film clearly was going for laughs. If you’ve had a bad day, it’s a good movie for an evening with some popcorn.

Out at the Wedding

This film is very silly, so if you are going to watch it, you need to be prepared for a ridiculous plot and some less than stellar acting (Reginald VelJohnson is good, and one wishes Mink Stole had been encouraged to camp it up a bit).

 

Basically, the main character, Alex, is a woman in love with a man. So far so uncomplicated. But Alex doesn’t seem to care much for her family, so she’s told the man that her entire family is dead. Meanwhile, she rarely sees her father and sister (her mother actually is dead). Somehow, when she goes to her sister’s wedding, her best friend accidentally tells everyone there that Alex is gay, when in fact it’s the best friend who is.

 

Alex’s sister doesn’t take kindly to being upstaged at her wedding, but she is sympathetic to the idea that Alex felt unable to tell the family about being a lesbian. Rather than let her sister believe that she ruined the wedding for no reason, Alex lets her sister continue to believe that she is gay and that she’s in a relationship with a half-black, half-Jewish woman named Dana (in fact her boyfriend is a half-black, half-Jewish man named Dana).

 

When her sister comes to visit her, she ends up hiring an actual lesbian to pretend to be this half-black, half-Jewish woman named Dana. As you can imagine, much ridiculousness ensues.

 

The whole premise is unbelievable, but if you can get past that, it’s an easy watch. Alex ends up reconciled with her family, one woman gets her man, and another woman gets her woman. Happily ever after.

 

The most I can say is that at least it’s not depressing and at least it doesn’t feature a predatory lesbian, as many gay films seem to.

Four-Faced Liar

Yet another lesbian film that was obvious from the beginning. One character has a boyfriend and has clearly never thought about her sexuality. Then she meets another young woman who is a raging dyke (sleeps with different women every night; oh, and she wears men’s boxers and vests and waistcoats, and sits with her legs spread – stereotypical much?). Guess what happens?

The Complete Guide to Vegan Food Substitutions: Book Review

When M and I got married, one of my friend bought us The Complete Guide to Vegan Food Substitutions by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman. It was a great gift and it’s a lovely, helpful book.

 

Since I’m a vegetarian and M can’t eat soya or dairy products, sometimes it can feel like a struggle to find dishes we can both make. What I like about this book is that it has a number of basic recipes and explanations for useful substitutions (such as for homemade milks other than soya or non-egg mayonnaise) and then many recipes that use those items, so you can see how to do it and get inspiration.

 

The recipes are very tempting, though there are a few items that I haven’t been able to find in my small city in the UK (rice milk powder, for example). I’ve really enjoyed this book and plan to make quite a few of the recipes. I think it would be a great book for any vegan/vegetarian and also for anyone with food allergies.

Weekend

Why are films featuring gay men often better than those featuring gay women? That’s something I’ve wondered as I’ve seen bad lesbian film after bad lesbian film. If it’s got a teacher-student plot, it’s probably a (bad) lesbian movie. If one character abuses her position of power to seduce the other, it’s probably a (bad) lesbian movie.

I was thus excited by Weekend. It’s about a guy called Russ who has a one-night stand that turns into something more. I loved how the film was intense and sweet, and it really portrayed that early-relationship awkwardness. I also liked that the film was romantic but not overly so, and it didn’t have the expected ending.

The one thing that I didn’t like was the sheer amount of drugs and alcohol in the film. Maybe it’s realistic to the gay scene and the twenty-something age group, but I felt that the two men could have had the same experiences with just a bit less alcohol and cocaine running through them.

I wish there’d be more lesbian films like this, with strong, believable, likeable characters, and an interesting storyline. Until then, I’m going to have to keep watching films like Weekend, and I’ll keep an eye out for its director, Andrew Haigh, and leading actors, Tom Cullen and Chris New.

Bloomington

God, yet another film with a predatory lesbian teacher who seduces a student. I don’t understand why people keep making these films. Is it is because lesbians are seen as predatory? Is there really a plethora of women who were seduced by their teachers/bosses/other people in a role of power? Is this kind of story what appeals  to (male) viewers?

Also, why is it that so many lesbians were “created” because of absent parents or bad relationships with their parents? That’s another part of this film.

There isn’t a lot I can say about this film other than that the script was ridiculous and the acting was nothing special. I’m really sick of these stories and really would love to see a lesbian filmmaker make something unusual and interesting.

Here Come the Girls

We had heard that the short films that comprise Here Come the Girls were good, so we eagerly anticipated some viewing pleasure on a Friday night. Alas, we were stunned by how relentlessly negative and trading in stereotypes these films were, so I definitely wouldn’t recommend them.

 The first of the films had acting so bad that we almost turned off the DVD. We persevered and the second film, Private Life, which is set in 1950s Yorkshire, was the star of the series. The production values were higher here and the story was more interesting. Also, it had a happy ending.

The other films were mostly desperately unhappy (a mother trying to force her lesbian daughter to be feminine; a young lesbian killed by a falling horseshoe (see the significance of that “lucky” object); an older, sick lesbian hampered with a mentally ill or perhaps demented partner; domestic violence, where a femme woman didn’t want to go to the police about her supposedly “butch” girlfriend), or they were based on stereotypes so old-fashioned as to be embarrassing (a butch narrator talking about how she’s “stone” and wants to treat her “femme” woman right; a femme wanting to use a dildo on her unwilling partner, who thinks butches don’t do that kind of thing).

Happy Birthday, which was the strap-on film just mentioned, was so ridiculous that I could only hope it was tongue-in-cheek. If it was serious, then I feel sad that so many young lesbians apparently still think they have to be either butch or femme and that there are such clear-cut roles.

In short, so to speak, I felt that I wasted an evening on these films. I hope someone will starting making some more challenging, positive, up-to-date LGBTQ films.

My Friend From Faro

This is a German film about a twenty-something lesbian stuck in a small town, working in a factory, unable to be her true self. I didn’t quite get how Mel’s family was so blind to who she really was, nor how Jenny, the girl she had a relationship with, didn’t see past what Mel told her. Still, Mel was a strong character and the actor who played her did a good job at portraying what she was going through.

 M wasn’t so keen on this film, but I thought it was rather sweet. There was the expected revelation and related bullying/violence and it wasn’t a surprising or new story in any way, but it was nice to see that things ended up fairly okay for Mel despite everything. As M pointed out, it’s tiring to see LGBTQ films that have the typical problems in them, and this one wasn’t an exception, but it did end on a positive note for Mel.

 

Tomboy

We saw the French film Tomboy not long ago. It had gotten great reviews and I was very curious about it.

I liked the acceptance of the main character implied in the film and I also liked the sister’s acceptance of the main character. I did, however, question the precocity of the children, especially the little sister. The conversations among the children didn’t always ring true.

But while I liked the main character and the way the film was done, a larger issue for me was that I didn’t understand the character. I didn’t know how s/he saw her/himself. Is this a child who simply wanted to “pass” as a boy? Is it a child who feels that s/he is in the wrong body? Is it a child who is in fact the “tomboy” of the title? Was this a stage? What was going on, really?

I felt it was a trans character, but I didn’t have enough confirmation of that, and the title seemed to speak against that idea. M saw herself in the character and though the character was a girl who just wanted to play with the boys, do “boy things”, and be accepted by the boys (i.e. not as a boy per se). It simply wasn’t clear. The ending certainly made me question my idea that it was a trans film, because it seemed to say that the character was moving on, “maturing”, and living as a girl now.

I suppose one reason why I love literature is that it allows you to get inside the head of the character/s. Film doesn’t allow this as much; it’s much more external. But if the main character had spoken more in Tomboy, maybe it would have been easier to follow what was going on.

Despite that, I actually really enjoyed the film and thought it was mostly well done.

Vegusto

Many vegan cheeses are made with soya, and since M can’t eat that, we’ve had to look further afield for alternatives. Cheezly’s no-soya cheese was okay, but it went mouldy within three days, which is way too fast.

We’ve discovered <a href="http://www.vegusto.co.uk/shop/">Vegusto</a>. It is the nicest vegan cheese we’ve found. Yes, it’s a bit more expensive, but it is worth it. We order a bunch at one time so we don’t have to keep paying for delivery and then we freeze it. It’s actually much easier to grate onto pasta or other dishes if it’s been frozen, we found.

Their cheese sauce is nice as well and we’ve tried various “burgers” and “meats” as well, which were tasty. In short, we’re impressed!

Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian

I have mentioned my cousins before here; I have no siblings, so these two guys are like brothers. One of them very thoughtfully bought me Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian cookbook.

It’s a James Beard Foundation award-winning book, so you know it’s good, but besides the accolades, it’s a great cookbook. It has over 600 recipes, all vegetarian, and they are divided up into categories such as dried beans and peas, grains, dairy, sauces, and so on. Jaffrey also has a list of helpful resources.

Some people are really unsure about how to make healthy vegetarian food, but this book offers a huge number of tips and recipes. Nothing is too complicated to make either. I personally especially love the aubergine dishes, but most of Jaffrey’s recipes are great.

I am lucky to have received such a wonderful book as a present from an equally wonderful relative.

Millennium Restaurant in San Francisco

I was very excited about a work-related trip to San Francisco, because I know the city is very vegetarian friendly. A friend and I made a point of trying a number of vegetarian restaurants there and we were not disappointed.

One night we treated ourselves to a more upscale meal, at the gourmet Millennium Restaurant. It’s situated in the Hotel California, the lobby of which has California-related lyrics stencilled all over it.

The meal started with bread served with a lentil spread. My friend told me he hated lentils and never ate them, so I deliberately didn’t let him find out what the spread was. He wolfed it up and said how much he enjoyed it and was shocked when he found out that it was made of lentils. I already knew I liked lentils, but this spread was indeed special.

Appetizers included fried green tomatoes and a spinach salad with smoked tofu. My main was seared tempeh served with grits, a peach sauce, and loads of tasty veg, while my friend had cornmeal-crusted zucchini/courgette (he told me how much he disliked polenta and was surprised to learn that cornmeal was polenta!). We couldn’t resist dessert. My friend had a peach cornmeal cake (since now he knew he liked cornmeal) and I had a chocolate almond cake to satisfy my chocolate-loving taste buds.

Everything tasted really fresh and delicious and it was great to be able to order anything we wanted from the menu and to know it was vegetarian, organic, and healthy. My friend and I were glad we treated ourselves and we’d definitely recommend the restaurant.

San Francisco

Over the summer, I was in San Francisco for work and I was thrilled to be in such a veggie-friendly and queer-friendly place. I was really spoiled for choice – at least on the food front I was; I certainly wasn’t looking for any other women when I’ve got the best at home.

Every restaurant I went into had a few vegetarian options on the menu, and not just the usual Portobello mushroom burger or stuffed red pepper (I must point out that I didn’t go to any steakhouses or anything like that, so I have no idea if they offer vegetarian options or not). There were also quite a few restaurants that were only vegetarian or even vegan. One I wanted to get to but didn’t have a chance to was called Greens. A woman on the plane was raving about it and I was sad that I never got there.

Golden Era was a vegetarian Chinese restaurant and my friend and I loved it. I often have trouble in Chinese restaurants because they seem to use pork products in a lot of dishes (don’t get me started on my trip to China, where I mostly ate white rice and cabbage), so this was a real treat. I loved not having to ask if any meat was used in the dishes.

We also went to Herbivore and it was so good that we want back another day. I especially loved the carrot cake. The atmosphere was relaxed and casual, which was nice too.

The gourmet treat of the trip was dinner at Millennium, an upscale vegan restaurant. I was with a friend who claims to hate lentils but he gobbled up the delicious lentil spread served with the bread. He also loved the cornmeal cake he had for dessert, though he claimed not to like polenta (which is made from the same thing). I found the food to be thoughtful and flavourful and it was wonderful to sit in a fancy restaurant and enjoy all the things that come with classy eating and to know that all the dishes were cruelty-free.

But while the eating was generally good (don’t remind me of the meal I had at the garlic restaurant, which made me feel sick and stinky for days), other aspects of the trip were less pleasing. The gay neighbourhood, the Castro, had loads of gay men, but I saw few women. The gay bookshops were out of business (though other bookstores have gay shelves). The work event I went to was dreadful. Food makes up for a lot, though, so I definitely recommend San Francisco as a vegetarian destination.

Heartbeats

I went to see Heartbeats, a new queer film, a couple of months ago, and I was pretty impressed. The director, Xavier Dolan, is only in his early 20s and I thought he did a good job of making an artistic, engaging film. Okay, sometimes it was a bit overly artsy, as though he really, really, really wanted it to be beautiful and cool. But it was a really attractive film, so I didn’t begrudge him his flounces (or the fact that the character that he played was stronger and got more screen time than the female character).

Basically, I liked the story of the two friends who both fall for the same guy, and I liked the twist at the end (which I won’t spoil for you). The music Dolan included was great too. I especially enjoyed Bang Bang by Dalida.

This was one of the better LGBT films that I’ve seen in recent months, so I’d recommend it.

Braised Lettuce

I was inspired by a recipe in the May issue of Delicious, but that recipe used bacon, which obviously I won’t cook with. So I adapted the recipe to vegetarian tastes and also used what I had around (onions rather than shallots, for example). I served it with the new Tesco vegetarian “chicken breast” for a simple meal. As with the Tesco “lamb” burger, I can’t say I thought the chicken was fantastic, but I like trying new meat-free products.

Ingredients:
2 onions
oil
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp vegetable bouillon
200 ml water
black pepper
smoked paprika
2 little gem lettuces
cream

Instructions:
1. Dice the onions and fry them in the oil. Add the sugar after a few moments.
2. When the onions have caramelised, add the vegetable bouillon, stir, then add the water. Cook for a few moments, and season with pepper and paprika.
3. Wash and halve the little gems. Oil and oven-safe dish and place them in there.
4. Pour the onion mixture and the cream over the lettuce.
5. Cover the dish with aluminium foil. Bake for about 35 minutes at 180 C.

Caramelised Potatoes and Broccoli

This is a tasty and simple side dish. I served it with Tesco’s new vegetarian “lamb” burgers, in a playful take on meat, potatoes, and veg. I can’t say I recommend Tesco’s burgers, because they left a strange aftertaste, but they were okay for a fast weeknight meal. I probably wouldn’t get them again.

Ingredients:
new potatoes (about 75 g)
oil
1 tbsp sugar
broccoli
salt
black pepper

Instructions:
1. Wash and dice the potatoes.
2. Fry them in oil, stirring often, until they brown slightly.
3. Sprinkle with sugar and stir. Fry another 5-10 minutes.
4. Wash and chop the broccoli and add it to the pan.
5. Season with salt and black pepper. Fry another 5 or so minutes, then serve.

Review of Silicone Bread ‘Tin’

I’d long wanted to try the silicone baking products, because I imagined they wouldn’t need much greasing and would release the products easily. So when M got me a silicone bread ‘tin’, I was excited. But then I tried it (for the olive and sun-dried bread I posted a couple of days ago), and it disappointed me.

The ‘tin’ was not that firm and it didn’t hold the form of the bread. I made a couple of loaves and both times, the rubbery walls of the mould bent outwards from the weight of the batter, which meant that the loaves looked a bit like squat mushrooms. They tasted fine, but I wasn’t impressed with the look. My sweetie thinks that if I put the silicone mould on a baking tray, that will help it keep the shape a bit better, so I might try that next.

The silicone did make it easy to get the bread out, however.

I was glad to try the silicone product, but it wasn’t quite up to my standards. I wonder if a different brand would be better or if smaller batches (such as for cookies or muffins) would suit silicone more, since the batter would be less heavy.