Now i'm cookin' with fire

Woke up this morning thank that I would watch a lotta films, and true to my thought, I did, 4 to be exact. Starting with The Man Without a Past which is my first Finnish film which I enjoyed a fair bit due to it's bleak nature and a character that just made you feel good about yourself, reminding us that kindness and beauty can be found anywhere, even in slums in Finland. After that I saw Predator with friends which was ok, it wasn't as good as the Alien films and it did feel longer than necessary but at least it had Schwarzenegger in it, otherwise it probably wouldn't have been as well received as it is today. Gallipoli was very good which is what I have come to expect from Peter Weir as it gave me a story and some characters that I actually cared about and gave me the full sweep of emotion. Barton Fink was the final film and certainly the most peculiar as it was kinda like a cross between Miller's Crossing and The Shinning as yet another writer character descends into near madness and a proverbial hell, it probably had some of the best cinematography of a Coen film I have seen though thanks to the dank and humdrum setting of Fink's apartment block.

I was tasked with cooking the dinner today so I decided I would make my speciality: Pasta Puttanesca (As inspired by The Series of Unfortunate Events books, my favorite series.) First of all however, we had no pasta as Mum forgot to buy it, a short trip to One Stop later remedied this and I got straight to work. The recipe called for 5 tablespoons of olive oil, which frequently I ignore as that seems like a lot of oil, but I was feeling experimental so I chucked in the full whack along with a bit of butter. 'I'll just let that stuff heat up' I thought to myself as I selected A Whole Lotta Rosie on Itunes so I could continue cooking feeling like a boss, it was at this point that the oil started to sizzle rather violently. In a panic to add more ingredients to stop the bubbling I diced some garlic and chopped up the anchovies, although I took the lid off with caution as it left me with a nasty cut last time, I threw that into the oil. I then opened the tin for the tomatoes and again in the panic of the moment inspired by the increasingly sizzling oil and the loud AC/DC guitar solo I threw in the tomatoes only to discover that to save on 50p, Mum had bought the non-chopped variety, this lead to me stabbing in vain at the whole tomatoes while dodging the hot, spitting oil.

I instead resulted to mushing it all up with the back of my spatula as I prepared the capers and olives, the latter I usually chop into halves, it was at this point I heard Daniel walking around upstairs, I prayed he would come help me in the kitchen but I didn't want to sound like a damsel in distress so I didn't call up to him. His footsteps grew quiet and I thought he just came down to use the toilet so I continued chopping the olives. Then he appeared out of nowhere, without any indication. Normally this wouldn't have been an issue, except for the fact that I was still a little on edge after watching Predator and he scared the crap outta me and I almost pressed to hard on the wrong side of the olive that could have ultimately sliced my finger. Dan stuck around for a little while but he merely stirred the sauce for 30 seconds, stopped, bluntly asked 'Have you finished slicing the olives yet?' and then he walked off. The final task was measuring out the weight of the spaghetti which I also made a right pig ear of as I spilled most of the pasta bag's contents onto the floor rather than the set of scales, after the dustiest game of pick-up-sticks ever I tossed them into the ready boiling water and all was right in the world. After that it was smooth sailing, Mum came home and helped me dish up, and in all honesty it wasn't too bad a meal, although I was roped into doing all of the washing up; typical really.