Our Theme Dinners have started up again.
Season 1 was Fall 2010. Season 2 was Spring 2011. After this Season - Fall 2011 - I think we're only going to have them in the Fall. Spring is just too busy here in New Orleans.
Or we may end after Season 3. We'll see how this Season goes. Like any good "show"that ends with everyone wanting more - think M.A.S.H., Seinfeld, Mary Tyler Moore - we want to end on a high instead of limping to an embarrassing end - think Mad About You, Scrubs, Laverne & Shirley.
To recap, here have been ALL the Themes we have used so far...
Season 1 -
Episode 1: Cold Food
Episode 2: Vegetarian
Episode 3: Dish Rhymes with a Saints Player’s Name
Episode 4: Idioms (e.g. “Spill the Beans”, “Couch Potato”, “Sour Grapes”, “Cut the Cheese”, and so on)
Episode 5: Dish Based On Your Fantasy Place to Live
Episode 6 – Part 1 of 3: Appetizers Only
Episode 6 – Part 2 of 3: Dish Rhymes with the Name of a Celebrity
Episode 6 – Part 3 of 3: Food Must Be on a Stick
Season 2 -
Episode 1: Healthy Food
Episode 2: Dish That Reminds You of a Favorite Movie
Episode 3: In Honor of Valentine’s Day, The Dish You Love The Most
Episode 4: Mardi Gras Food (Purple, Green, Gold, or Parade Food)
Episode 5: Jeopardy (Each person picks a theme from a hat, but does not reveal. The night of our dinner, everyone tries to guess the themes.)
Season 3 -
Episode 1: Let Them Eat Cake
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Since Season 3, Episode 1 is fresh in my mind - because we met this past Wednesday - here is a list of dishes presented:
Christine - Tofu Cakes with Jicama Relish
Greg – Crab Cakes
Jason K. – Petit Fours on a really cute tiered platter. He named the presentation “Babette”.
Jason S. – Angel Hair Pasta with Crab Cakes & Marzipan Cake (though that may not be correct) (first place for both dishes)
Julie – British Fish Cakes and Chips with little British forks
Marshall – Potato Pancakes (third place)
Mary – Recession Cake (second place)
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A few people have dropped out this season. I am working on recruiting some fresh members. Everyone seems to be having fun, but we need a couple of dynamic personalities to lubricate the evening. I get nervous hosting any event. When I get nervous, I get quiet.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Jane Lynch
NPR's Morning Edition interviewed Jane Lynch this morning. Somewhere during that 7 minutes and 20 seconds, I went to Amazon and bought her new book.
Here's the short version of the interview.
It's a big week for Jane Lynch. Her memoir, Happy Accidents, was released on Tuesday, and this Sunday night, she'll be hosting the Primetime Emmy Awards. And she's a reasonably good bet to pick one up, too: her second in a row for playing the scheming cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester on Fox's Glee. On Friday's Morning Edition, she talks to David Greene about her career, her book, and the difficult process of telling her parents she was gay.
Lynch learned perseverance early after she quit a school play in which she'd been cast because she was afraid of making mistakes. Despite the fact that wanting to be an actress was her "first conscious memory," she became so afraid of failing that she walked away from the project. "That is the last time I walked away from anything," she says. "I've been a yes person now for a long time."
One person to whom she eagerly said yes was director Christopher Guest, whose work on so-called "mockumentaries" like This Is Spinal Tap and Waiting For Guffman she already admired when she met him when he directed her in a commercial for Frosted Flakes. Lynch and Guest ran into each other again later, and he cast her in his 2000 film Best In Show, where she played one-half of a dog-showing couple opposite Jennifer Coolidge. She went on to appear in Guest's A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration, as well as Judd Apatow's wildly popular The 40 Year Old Virgin, where she played Steve Carell's sexually accommodating boss who sings him what she says is a Guatemalan love song. As Lynch explains, though, the words come from a Spanish textbook and in fact vow to blame her mother for cleaning her room.
But in spite of her many successes, Lynch says it wasn't easy for her when she told her parents she was gay. "I went to see a therapist," she says, "because I was just suffering so much over this alienation I felt from my family." The therapist convinced her to try writing her parents a letter, with the understanding that, of course, she didn't have to send it. But when she wrote it and the words came easily, she sent it after all — which, she says, was undoubtedly the point of the exercise.
As she cruises into her high-profile hosting gig this weekend, Lynch says she's learned a lot about how to approach her own limitations: "I think the most important thing is that it's not like I'm done growing and evolving, but I certainly have so much more compassion and kindness for myself, and I have cut myself some slack."
---------------------------------------------
For the long version - or if you'd rather listen than read - follow this link and click on Listen To The Story.
It's a big week for Jane Lynch. Her memoir, Happy Accidents, was released on Tuesday, and this Sunday night, she'll be hosting the Primetime Emmy Awards. And she's a reasonably good bet to pick one up, too: her second in a row for playing the scheming cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester on Fox's Glee. On Friday's Morning Edition, she talks to David Greene about her career, her book, and the difficult process of telling her parents she was gay.
Lynch learned perseverance early after she quit a school play in which she'd been cast because she was afraid of making mistakes. Despite the fact that wanting to be an actress was her "first conscious memory," she became so afraid of failing that she walked away from the project. "That is the last time I walked away from anything," she says. "I've been a yes person now for a long time."
One person to whom she eagerly said yes was director Christopher Guest, whose work on so-called "mockumentaries" like This Is Spinal Tap and Waiting For Guffman she already admired when she met him when he directed her in a commercial for Frosted Flakes. Lynch and Guest ran into each other again later, and he cast her in his 2000 film Best In Show, where she played one-half of a dog-showing couple opposite Jennifer Coolidge. She went on to appear in Guest's A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration, as well as Judd Apatow's wildly popular The 40 Year Old Virgin, where she played Steve Carell's sexually accommodating boss who sings him what she says is a Guatemalan love song. As Lynch explains, though, the words come from a Spanish textbook and in fact vow to blame her mother for cleaning her room.
But in spite of her many successes, Lynch says it wasn't easy for her when she told her parents she was gay. "I went to see a therapist," she says, "because I was just suffering so much over this alienation I felt from my family." The therapist convinced her to try writing her parents a letter, with the understanding that, of course, she didn't have to send it. But when she wrote it and the words came easily, she sent it after all — which, she says, was undoubtedly the point of the exercise.
As she cruises into her high-profile hosting gig this weekend, Lynch says she's learned a lot about how to approach her own limitations: "I think the most important thing is that it's not like I'm done growing and evolving, but I certainly have so much more compassion and kindness for myself, and I have cut myself some slack."
---------------------------------------------
For the long version - or if you'd rather listen than read - follow this link and click on Listen To The Story.
Take A Sheet Ad Campaign
From AdFreak, one of my daily blog stops...
Worst Ad Campaign of the Year? Sheets Energy Strips
This campaign for Sheets Energy Strips has to be the low point of 2011 advertising so far. This is a product you put in your mouth, yet it's being marketed with headlines that reference defecation. It's one thing to do a silly coupon—it's another to build a brand around this kind of thing. Pitbull (above) and LeBron James are among the company's celebrity endorsers (James is actually a co-founder of the company), but that won't do much to help its reputation—it'll just bring theirs down.
Here's a link to the original article.
Worst Ad Campaign of the Year? Sheets Energy Strips
This campaign for Sheets Energy Strips has to be the low point of 2011 advertising so far. This is a product you put in your mouth, yet it's being marketed with headlines that reference defecation. It's one thing to do a silly coupon—it's another to build a brand around this kind of thing. Pitbull (above) and LeBron James are among the company's celebrity endorsers (James is actually a co-founder of the company), but that won't do much to help its reputation—it'll just bring theirs down.
Here's a link to the original article.
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