A long overdue food-related post

As I mentioned in a previous post, the reason I haven't talked about food in a while is because I was going through a rather intense elimination diet to help pinpoint my IBS triggers. I kind of lost the joy of food last year as I attempted to seek out the things that continued to make my digestive system attack itself. Food was strictly utilitarian until I could figure out what was making me so sick all the time.

I'm happy to say that I've finally started to pinpoint the things that were causing me problems, but more importantly, I know better how to manage my eating so that I can indulge in an amazing meal every now and again as long as I practice more restraint in my every day eating habits. For anyone battling IBS and are beginning to feel hopeless about your condition (I know I was), I highly recommend seeking out a nutritionist who can help you with the Low FODMAP diet. It's not a cure or a magic pill, but it is incredibly empowering to understand your body better. I am so thrilled with how much hope this experience has given me.

So, one of the glorious things I've discovered about this diet is that even though lactose is considered a no-no in the beginning total elimination phase, most hard cheeses have virtually no lactose in them, so I was able to indulge in cheese every day with no problems. That was truly my saving grace. I pretty much don't drink milk anymore because it is a huge trigger for me, and have finally discovered a dairy free milk I can tolerate: rice milk. So much so that the other night I mixed it with some Kahlua and couldn't tell the difference between rice milk and regular milk. ;)


I also was told of this delicious, refreshing Low FODMAP salad from the very awesome Raina Telgemeier: pineapple, bell pepper, green onion, with your favorite herbs (I used mint and cilantro).


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Unrelated to above, last night my husband and I watched The Hundred-Foot Journey and wow! If you are a foodie, that movie is a must-see. It's actually one of the few movies I enjoyed more than the book. I think this is because Helen Mirren played Madame Mallory so much better than the one-dimensional character the narrator made her seem when I listened to the audiobook. Helen Mirren brings out more dimensions in her character than what I experienced listening to the book. Not only that, but you leave the movie feeling absolutely famished. :)

 It probably goes without saying but Chef  is also another must-see movie for foodies. The food porn in it is definitely meant to titillate the senses for sure! Watching both of these movies recently has helped to remind me of why I am a foodie in the first place: because good food is such a rich, sensory experience. As a writer and lover of words, I get excited over the prospect of not only tasting delicious food, but being able to describe it.

Making a case for the MOCKINGJAY soundtrack

I went with my husband to see Catching Fire for the second time yesterday. Even though I had already seen the movie the opening weekend, my husband hadn't and really wanted to see it. So I graciously told him I would accompany him even though I had already seen it. ;)  I am happy to say it was even better the second time around -- maybe because the first time I saw it I was so tired I kept nodding off. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the movie considering I really preferred the first book to the second, especially when they got to the Quarter Quell.

As the movie ended with its infamous cliffhanger and the last image you see is Katniss's fierce expression, I was reminded again how much I REALLY hope my favorite Muse song "Uprising" is on the Mockingjay soundtrack. I mean, that song is a slam sunk. Not only is the song a battle cry, but with a chorus like:

They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious

It's kind of perfect, don't you think?

And then there's my favorite line of the whole song:
Rise up and take the power back
It's time the fat cats had a hard attack
You know well
Their time's coming to an end
It's time we unify to watch our flag ascend
So I'm saying this now: whoever's responsible for creating the soundtrack to Mockingjay, you have failed if you don't include "Uprising" on the soundtrack, OK?

Oh, and as a side note, how many of you are totally coveting Katniss's scarf/shawl/thingie she wears in the opening scene of Catching Fire?

I know I am!

The Hunger Games movie review

 Attention: This review contains major book spoilers. Read at your own peril if you haven't read the books yet.

I wasn't going to write about The Hunger Games movie. I didn't want to be just another person in the blogosphere to add my two cents to an otherwise oversaturated commentary.

But then I saw the movie. And I couldn't NOT comment.

I sat there in the theater for two and a half hours today completely spellbound, more than half of the time in tears or on the verge of tears. It was such an emotional experience to see the world that Suzanne Collins created come to life. Sometimes when we imagine a world in our heads from a book we read, it can still be a bit incomplete and hazy, so when books become movies we rely on the movies to try to fill in the blanks for us. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don't.

I'd have to say The Hunger Games succeeded beyond my wildest expectations. One place where movie producers filled in the gaps for me was how they envisioned The Capitol. What a lavish and wickedly wacky world they imagined, and while completely different from what I pictured in my head, it somehow fit perfectly with the story.

But let's go back to the beginning with The Reaping. Before Effie Trinket announces the names of the Tributes, she queues up a film that President Snow narrates to explain the purpose of the Hunger Games. It immediately puts you in mind of one of those old Soviet propaganda films - displaying bronzed, muscled tributes, willing to risk life and limb for "the greater good." But here is where the visual of the movie over the book was beneficial. The contrast between the proud, regal tributes in the propaganda film and the stunned, frightened citizens of District 12 was jarring, made even more symbolic by the striking camera angles that bounce back and forth between propaganda and reality.

Then there's the emotion of the results of The Reaping. Katniss most definitely steals the show with her dramatic response to Prim being selected as Tribute - we all saw that in the trailer. But what we didn't see was Peeta's reaction to his selection as tribute and while definitely not as dramatic, it is equally as emotional.

Since we're talking about emotion, let's discuss the actors. While I was quite dubious about almost every casting choice, now that I have seen the movie in its entirety, I can't imagine anyone else playing those roles. I'm still a little iffy about Peeta, but I think he nailed the likability factor. There was no swooning for me over Peeta in this movie. I've always been a Gale fan from the beginning and the movie just reinforced that position. Just as in the book, I never bought into the romance between Peeta and Katniss. It always felt like it was just a ruse to her in order to survive.

Which leads me to Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. She nailed the calculating and emotionless when she needed to and the moving and dramatic at other times. I'd have to say that Rue's death is even more devastating in the movie than the book for the simple fact that Lawrence's reaction to it is so powerful and convincing.

Woody Harrelson as Haymitch I thought was a great choice. The character seemed to be much more with it in the movie vs. the book and was definitely less of a drunkard on screen, but Harrelson still manages to make the role work for the movie and given more time, would have explored his major vice a bit more, but with time constraints, I'm sure that was something they had to sacrifice.

One of my favorite casting choices was Lenny Kravitz as Cinna. OK, can I just say that I can't believe that man is almost forty-eight years old? He doesn't look a day over thirty-five. Cinna's integrity and gentle-nature was definitely given its proper due in Kravitz's portrayal. He along with Gale were two characters I wanted to see more of in the film.

And Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket? Delightfully uncomfortable and wickedly hideous - and I mean that in the best possible way. Maybe I just don't remember well enough from the book but Effie in the movie seemed much more like a pawn of the Capitol than she did in the book. Perhaps I'm just misremembering though. Where Cinna definitely had a "stick it to the man" kind of vibe, Effie felt more like she thought the whole thing was just a big pageant instead of a fight to the death.

As Kimberly over at Stacked mentioned, one thing they added to the film that I really enjoyed was seeing the "behind the scenes" work of the gamemakers and the calculating orchestration of the games by Seneca and President Snow. Because Katniss narrates the entire book, we don't get to see what's happening from the perspective of other characters so that was a different experience from the book and one that I think enhanced the story.

The last piece of the movie that I wanted to comment on was a discussion a few of us were having on Twitter about the handheld camera work. Lenore Applehans mentioned that the frequency of shaky camera work left her with a headache and feeling nauseous. As someone who experienced this very thing a few years ago when my husband and I saw The Bourne Ultimatum in theaters, I worried that I would come out of the movie feeling the same way, or worse, having to leave in the middle. Thankfully, this did not affect me in the slightest, and in a way I was grateful for the shaky camera work as it made the violence much less gory.

Overall, I'd have to say this is one of the most amazing book to film adaptations I've ever seen. And since Suzanne Collins's name appeared quite a few times in the credits, I'm going to be so bold to say that including the author in making a book come to life on screen almost always is a wise decision.

Despite the fact that I didn't love the other two books in the series as much as I loved the first one, the creation of this blockbuster phenomenon has made me buy into the whole experience and made me even more emotionally invested than I was when I read the books. And listening to all the sniffling, snorting adults, teens, and tweens sitting in the theater today, I could tell they all felt the same way too. The way that they ended the first movie was a perfect set up for the second one and made me ever more anxious for next year.

Book vs. Movie: The Help

A few years ago, I was hearing a great deal of buzz about a novel called The Help by Kathyrn Stockett. I honestly didn't give this book any thought until I started hearing so many people talking about how amazing it was. So I decided to give it a go.

Boy am I ever glad I did. The novel was amazing.The characters just leaped off the page. I would often find myself thinking about the characters even after I put the book down. I'd be in the kitchen making dinner and thinking to myself, "I wonder what Skeeter's going to do about that" or "I can't believe Minny actually did that" or "Wow that Hilly is pure evil."

I was leery about whether the movie would succeed in making all of those characters leap off the screen like they leaped off the page of the book. I had my doubts that Emma Stone could pull off Skeeter. But I needn't have worried because the movie was amazing. All of the characters were wonderful and brought the book back to life in vivid detail.

Every actor in this movie did an amazing job, but I really have to hand it to Bryce Dallas Howard who played Hilly. She was so good at being bad that she made me uncomfortable. I believed her as that character and I didn't want to because Hilly is such a horrible, awful person.

So you already know that I thought that actors were great, but was the movie true to the book? Well it's been a few years since I've read it, but I'd say it follows the book extremely well. It's probably one of the best book to movie adaptations I've ever seen. My only criticism is that Skeeter's romance with Stuart was so brief in the movie that it was almost a non-event. There was a much bigger focus on that part in the novel, but I understand why they decided to play that down. Still, it felt like it needed to have a bit more emphasis.

Overall, I am extremely pleased with the movie and loved it so much that I had to resist the urge to applaud when it ended.

Hugo Trailer

I had heard recently that The Invention of Hugo Cabret was becoming a movie, but I didn't realize that it was coming out so soon - in November. What struck me dumb, however, was that Martin Scorsese directed it! That's just strange to me.

I just watched the trailer. It looks like it will be a stunning adaptation but nothing will ever match the magic of the book. What do you think?

Book vs. Movie: Eat, Pray, Love

"Liz Gilbert (Roberts) had everything a modern woman is supposed to dream of having - a husband, a house, a successful career - yet like so many others, she found herself lost, confused, and searching for what she really wanted in life. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, Gilbert steps out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life, embarking on a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery. In her travels, she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy; the power of prayer in India, and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love in." - from IMDB

I really wanted to like this movie because the book resonated so much with me, but the whole thing was incredibly disconcerting. The screenplay was completely disconnected, disjointed, and rushed. As far as the casting goes, it just felt off to me. Julia Roberts' stardom overwhelmed the story and Javier Bardem as Fillipe was not convincing to me at all (and hello? what on earth was up with the mix tapes???) The most convincing role was Richard Jenkins as Richard from Texas, but even his portrayal of that role was way more serious and aloof than I expected.

The movie took the story way too seriously than the lightheartedness with which the book was told. In the book, Liz Gilbert knows how to make fun of herself and to use humor when the situation called for it. But on screen everything felt so stoic and serious.

The only saving grace of this movie was the stellar beauty of the cinematography. The food porn in Italy alone was enough to make me want to hop a plane to Rome and stuff my face full of pasta and gelato.

Even with what I have already said about my dislike for this movie, I'm still having a difficult time putting my finger on what exactly bothered me so much about it. Yes, it felt rushed and chopped up, but that's often what happens when books are turned into movies. Not really sure why this particular one didn't sit so well with me. I highly suggest you skip the movie and just read the book. If you really want to see it, save your money and wait till it comes out on DVD and check it out at the library.