The Last Five Years

Jamie and Cathy’s five-year relationship ends badly. Bouncing back and forth through time and perspectives, we see all of the major moments of it play out.

( It's a hard movie to spoil, given that it tells you the ending in the very first sung lines. )

Overall: The actors are good, the cinematography is good, the comedic bits work, but the show overall isn’t so great. There just isn’t enough there. Also for reference, this is not a good date night movie.

Smokin’

For my birthday (which isn’t until Memorial Day weekend, but I’m not complaining), my parents got me a Masterbuilt 30-Inch Electric Digital Smoker. I set it up and seasoned it on Friday, then did a first run meat-smoking on Saturday.

I did a 2-pound brisket rubbed in salt, pepper, garlic, onion, and chili powder; and five bone-in chicken leg quarters rubbed in Bacon Rub. I used hickory chips for the smoking. They were in the smoker set at 225 (though I think the temperature was functionally higher, with the bright sun beating down on the box) for about four hours. The chicken came out marvelously tender and nicely smoky, though the rub didn’t come through that well. The brisket also got a nice smokiness, but dried out a bit and again didn’t get the rub favors to come through well.

My complaints about it being imperfect apparently didn’t stop people from devouring it all, mind you.

I think next time I need to a) Either marinate or at least dry-rub the meat in advance and let it sit before smoking; b) Get chicken parts I can spice-rub under the skin, rather than over; c) Do the beef on a lower heat for longer.

I am happy with the smoker itself—though aficionados swear by charcoal, electric is a lot easier to deal with at this point in my life. Not having to manually adjust the temperature is awesome. The “cabinet” style of smoker means you need to clean a lot of pieces after use (washing the four racks, the water pan, the chip pan and the drip pan, along with wiping down the inside) which some of the barbeque-style setups avoid, but it is easier to get things in and out. It does mean that it’s not worth it to smoke one small thing, though: If I need to be home for six hours and to clean everything anyway, I might as well fill the smoker to capacity if I’m going to use it. (I could probably get a whole turkey in this thing. I’m certain I could fit a turkey breast, possibly two.)

The smoker ranges from 100 to 275 degrees; I’m lead to believe that smoking cheese is possible. I may do that eventually. I think the next thing I’m going to try is pork—I found a pulled-pork recipe that I may modify the spice mix from, but I think can work nicely.

On that topic, I’ve tried mesquite and hickory so far with my smoker box, and now I have a box of apple chips that I intend to try with pork and possibly fish. Amazon sells (that I can find) Maple, Oak, Cherry, Pecan and Alder as well. I’m going to have to do a lot of testing.

Cooking Mama 4: Kitchen Magic

Learn to cook! It’s okay, Mama will help you!

…Again!

( Mama's Impressed!...but I'm not anymore. )

Overall: I don’t know, I think I may be getting tired of this series. The first few games and the spin-offs kept adding enough new things to keep each sequel interesting (even if some of them were frustrating), but I think they may be finally running out of ideas. This is a “more of the same” game if ever I played one. It’s fun to visit the magical land where hearts and stars fly out of your kitchen equipment and you’re “Even better than Mama!” but I think the bloom is finally off the rose.