Happy Hour at Chez Animal Hair Can I get you a drink?

We went to Aura on Friday night and as luck would have it, we were one of two parties there at the time and it was tasting night! This means that they were changing the menu and the owner was there showing the chefs how to cook everything. As you know the best way to learn is to do, so they made one of almost everything (new) on the menu.

Since we’re loyal regulars (and since I got the bar mentioned on a National gossip column) the owner likes us and shared these food dishes with us. We had pizza, Baba Ganoush, Tsaziki, 4 cheese ravioli (my favorite), seared tuna with garlic mashed potatoes (also heavenly) and grilled asparagus, smoked salmon, and two kinds of risotto: a fresh tomato and a pesto. I loved the pesto risotto and immediately thought that it would be great meal with just a few additions. I practiced tonight.

If you are thinking about going to dinner in Minneapolis please try Aura, everything was wonderful and it’s a great atmosphere. They’ve recently added more vegetarian options and they’re going to also move toward organic ingredients.

Mushroom Pesto Risotto

For Pesto:
1 bunch basil
1 tablespoon Chopped garlic (more, or less)
small handful of walnuts, somewhere between 1/8 and ¼ cup
2 tablespoons olive oil (more or less)
(do I need to remind you I don’t measure?)

For Rice:
1 teaspoon olive oil
½ cup uncooked arborio rice (this I did measure)
2 cups chicken broth (at least be ready with more if you need it)

For Mix Ins:
½ small onion chopped
3 large button mushrooms sliced
handful of dried shiitake mushrooms
1 cup boiling water

Start by softening the shiitake mushrooms. Throw them into a small pan with about a cup of water. Bring to a boil and let simmer for a little while. During this time you can chop the onion and other mushrooms. After a few minutes pour the mushroom and water mixture into a bowl and let it sit. The water should still be hot.

Make the pesto: In a food processor mix together all the basil ingredients except the olive oil. Pulse the processor until it’s all well chopped up small. Slowly add the olive oil, and again, eyeball it.

In a larger saucepan heat the 1 teaspoon olive oil. Add the onion and fresh mushrooms. Saute until tender and the mushrooms have released most of their liquid. Usually around 7 minutes or so?

Meanwhile that pan you had the shiitakes in? Fill it up with water I started with about a cup and a half, but needed to add more later, so I’d suggest starting out with 2 cups. Bring it to a boil then turn it down to low just so it stays hot.

Remove the onion and mushroom mixture and set it aside in a bowl. Add a little more oil to the pan if it’s all gone. Just a teensy bit though, you don’t want to use any more than you have to. Add the rice and stir until the rice is all covered in oil.

Now comes the boring time. This part will likely take around 30 minutes. Using a ladle, add in about a half a cup to one cup of the broth to the rice. Stir until the water is evaporated. Continue until the rice is soft and velvety. Once the rice is done, mix in all the mushrooms, onions and the pesto and serve.

This makes enough for maybe 4 small side dishes or two not very hungry adults.

Posted under Cooking, Random Thoughts, Sides, Vegetarian

This was a throw together thing. I wanted pasta and sort of took a look at some recipes and put this together using those as a guideline. I was dubious but it turned out really yummy. This makes one serving. Yes, Greg was out of town.

¼ pound dried fettuccine (about a quarter of a box)
1 teaspoon olive oil
10 (or so) grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1 tablespoon garlic (yes, it’s a lot, you can use less, but I love garlic)
¼ cup chopped white onion
¼ cup white wine (or chicken broth)
6-7 black olives, sliced in half
½ of a roasted red pepper, chopped (about 1/8 cup)
1 tablespoons capers
salt and pepper to taste
Feta Cheese (I used reduced fat and it was good, I think Parmesan would be good here in place of feta too).
Fresh Basil, snipped (about 4 leaves)

I am guessing on amounts, I really just threw this together without measuring anything.

Start the noodle water.

Heat olive oil in a skillet and add onion. After the onion starts to soften add garlic. Saute for a few more minutes. Add wine (or broth, I used both). Let summer until it some of the liquid has evaporated. The noodle water is probably boiling now so you can add the fettuccine now.

To the onion/garlic mixture, throw in the tomatoes, olives, peppers and capers and season to taste with salt and pepper. But be mindful that the capers are pretty salty so don’t use too much salt. Lots of pepper though. Let it simmer until the noodles are done and the tomatoes are a little mushy. (Click on the photo for a larger one)

Drain the pasta and add it to the skillet with the veggies (actually these are all fruits, except the peppers!) and toss. Sprinkle with the feta cheese. Enjoy!

Posted under Cooking, Pasta, Random Thoughts, Vegetarian

Man About Town

Director: Mike Binder
Writer (WGA): Mike Binder
Release Date: 8 June 2006

Well, you know I have a crush on Ben Affleck right? So it’s not a surprise that I saw this movie and enjoyed it.

Ben plays a talent agent for writers. He’s successful and charming and he’s kind of shit. I know, you’ve seen him play this part before. It’s true. But he’s so good at it. It’s like seeing Vince Vaughn repeatedly play a playboy asshole, it just works. If it ain’t broke…

Of course he gets his comeuppance, but the thing is, they didn’t make him either so awful you cheered, nor so sweet you were really pulling for him. I kind of didn’t really care how it ended. That said, I knew how it would end as it was very predictable.

The cast is good, other than Mr Affleck we have, Rebecca Romijn, Jerry O’Connell (I wonder if this is where they met, they are married now, you know), John Cleese, Adam Goldberg, Gina Gershon, Bai Ling, and Howard Hessman plays Ben’s character’s ailing father. With all these (at least semi-) big names I’m surprised I didn’t hear about this until it was recommended to me on NetFlix. Must have gone straight to DVD.

It’s no Oscar winner, but it’s cute. There were some funny lines and some parts that I think they thought were going to be really funny and they fell dead. But all in all, not bad for a rental or a Tivo (it’s on Showtime right now).

I guess I’d give it 2.5 to 3 stars.

Posted under Comedy, Movie Reviews

I keep getting these ideas. What I think are money making blog ideas. I get all fired up and start new blogs. I am the crazy blog-starter-person. I am ADD with the blogs.

So click below if you want to know about my neurosis and the future of this site.

Read More…

Posted under Random Thoughts

This cartoon was in my New Yorker, cartoon-a-day calendar. Jody was here when it was up and she pointed to it and said she didn’t get it. I hadn’t read it yet, but I looked at it and I didn’t get it either. So I saved it to show Greg when he got home last weekend and he didn’t get it either.

So pulled it out last night to show to Tom and Al and neither of them got it either. So I decided to post it here and see if any of you can decipher what it means.

Here are some questions I have:

Where are they? On the street? In an office?
What is the woman on the right doing? Is she the one talking? Is she grasping her stomach or just gesturing?
In other words, WTF?

If the author/cartoonist finds this page: Let me know if you need me to take it down. I will do so…as soon as you explain it to me!

Posted under Random Thoughts

Greg took this photo of the spider that’s been visiting us.

Here’s a close up:

Isn’t she creepy?

I thought she had been eaten since her web was still up on Saturday morning, but she came back Saturday night and started building again. Here’s what it looked like Saturday morning.

Oh and in other wildlife news, Rocky, the squirrel that fell out of the tree in our yard, was released back into Minneapolis by the Wildlife Rehab Center on July 15th, 2007.
If you don’t know what I am talking about, see [here]

Posted under Random Thoughts, house

And I have fewer rights than June Cleaver.

This is not the first time this has happened. Here’s how it goes down: Greg and I realize that we need to change something on of our phone account. I make the call to T-Mobile and attempt to make changes and I am told that I do not have permission to do this. That only Greg can.

In fact, we’ve had this argument with them before. I yelled at them; which didn’t faze them a bit. Then Greg yelled at them; which resulted in them apologizing and promising it would never happen again. Yet it does. It did today.

Because Greg is working so much and out of town so much (and his company will not supply him with a work cell phone, forcing him to use his personal one for work) we often…as in every single month…go over our minute limit. By a lot…like hundreds of dollars.

We decided that we wanted to upgrade our service and get more minutes per month. It’s going to cost us, which is irritating to me already because I believe that his work should be paying for it, but that’s another story. A long one I don’t want to go into here.

I attempted to make the changes online. I logged into my account with T-Mobile and went through the process of changing the plan. I got to the last page and it says this:

What the hell? So ‘hey warning, it’s going to change these two phone numbers!’ Then right below…’this will only affect one phone number.’ How exactly is that possible? It’s a Family Plan. I am not a family of one. It pertains to the whole damn account, or so it should.

So I call T-Mobile’s customer service. I get Mark. He wants Greg’s SSN. I don’t know it. I tell him that. He says he cannot help me. Only Greg can make any changes. He can’t even discuss it with me. Then for some unknown reason he asks why I am calling. I tell him about the website debacle and his response? “I can’t discuss that with you.”

Me: (inside my head, not out loud) Then why the fuck did you ask me?!

Mark: Can you get the SSN, I will hold.

Me: Greg is out of town, I would have to call him.

Mark: And you won’t do that?

Me: Well, I can’t very well call him while you are on hold…on the same phone.

(Pause, pause)

Mark: Oh (nervous laugh)

So I said that I would just have Greg call him back, but I said to make sure that I am given control on this account. I made it sound like Greg is a very important and busy man and can’t be bothered to make customer service calls so I have to do it (which actually is pretty true) so he’d better put me on the account. He said he couldn’t. Not without Greg asking him to. I said, he will. Oh he will.

Gee, do you think I’ll be able to vote next year?

Oh and another reason to hate T-Mobile? Greg found out that if we want to add minutes to our plan we have to extend our contract for one year! Is that even legal? Why would they punish their customers like that? I want to give you more money. I’ve been a customer for at least 5 years and this is how you thank me?

Fine I’ll switch to AT&T, I want an iPhone anyway. Jackasses.

Posted under Random Thoughts

When I took the dogs out last night for Last Call For Potty ä I nearly walked into this.

While it might not look like much there, click on it and you’ll see that it’s a ginormous spider web. What’s not in the photo (because she’s faster than I am) is the ginormous spider to match. She was the size of my thumb, one digit of it anyway.

This web was stretched between the beams of the back porch so it’s about 4 feet wide by 4 or 5 feet tall. The middle section that you can see here is about 2 feet across.

There are also angels in the picture! OK I’m kidding, it’s lens flare, I’m sure.

Click below and I’ll show you.

Posted under Random Thoughts, house

Jody came over last night and while we we waiting for her on the porch I took this photo. They sure know when someone is coming over.

We made dinner (brats, beans, corn, chips and salsa) and watched “Music and Lyrics” and it was soooooo cute. I really enjoyed it. Hugh Grant is so damn charming. *sigh*.

It’s Murphy’s 13th birthday this week!!

Posted under Friends, Random Thoughts

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

Starring Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, David Straithairn, Joan Allen
Directed By Paul Greengrass

You aren’t very often going to read reviews of currently playing movies here, by myself anyway. I don’t generally go see “new” movies. I am a Netflix and TiVo Addict and that’s where I get most of my entertainment. I also have a pretty extensive home theater so there’s little need to see something in the theater because one wants to see it “on the big screen”. My home screen often feels bigger than a theater’s screen, probably because I am sitting so close.

But this is one of those films I just was so anxious to see that I not only saw it in the theater, I saw it opening weekend. This is rare for me.

I adored the first tow “Bourne” films and have been a fan of Matt Damon (and most of the rest of the cast) for a long time. So there was no doubt this would be an “in the theaters” film.

I can’t really say that you have to have seen the first two, but it sure would help. If you plan to watch the first two films before seeing this one, and you have not done so yet, don’t read anymore. There are spoilers, as this film is sort of all about what happened in previous ones.

We pick up shortly (very shortly) after the last film ends. When we left off Marie (Bourne’s girlfriend, played by the lovely Famke ) had just been killed. Now he’s pissed and is determined to find out who is behind all this. His other goal is to find out who he really is. This is a really great story. Written well and of course, the acting by everyone is superb.

The direction is at times frenetic to say the least. During the fight scenes and flight scenes there that things that are doing so fast and the cuts are nearly seizure inducing that I often found it hard to follow what exactly is going on. But do you really need to? You know that Bourne is fighting someone and you know what the outcome will be so just sit back and catch what you can. And you will find yourself doing the occasional ‘oooooogh’ when one of them gets a really good punch in. Hello? The book to the neck?! Egad. I’ll have to remember that one.

I can’t say too much about the plot as it will give too much away, but I will say that this is my favorite one so far. I say “so far” because I really hope there are more. There have been rumors that this is to become a huge franchise, one to give the James Bonds a run for their money. I sure hope so. I actually find these much more enjoyable.

This is one of those near perfect films. I only say “near” because I don’t think anything is perfect, but I honestly can’t think of anything I would change. It leaves enough open so that there can be more. I know these are based on a series of books which I have not read for the sole purpose that I don’t want to know what’s going to happen when I see the moves. I made that mistake with the Showtime series “Dexter”.

I just heard today that “The Bourne Ultimatum” has had the biggest August opening ever (at around 70 million for the first weekend). Good for you guys. Please make another one. I realize that the pain and suffering Matt Damon (and his movie enemies) have to go through to put it together is probably more intense than the pleasure we get watching it but I hope the 70 million this one made so far will convince then to keep going.

5 out of 5 stars….and I don’t do that often.

[Watch the Trailer]
[Official Site]

(and it doesn’t hurt that Mr.Damon is a hottie)

Posted under Action/Adventure, Movie Reviews, Mystery/Suspense