Life in Calgary
They recently held the annual Calgary Comics Expo. Tens of thousands of fans came out to Stampede Park, many dressed up as their favorite superhero.
It’s my theory that everyone has a super power of some kind. For Linda, it’s her talent to organize a kitchen so that I can immediately find the cherry pit remover or pickle bottle opener, even in the dark.
My super power is the ability to pick the slowest till line. I don’t care if it’s a bank, a grocery store or a funeral parlor, the little old lady in front of me is going to pay her bill with nickels.
It’s spring in Calgary and that means the potholes are in season! That’s right, the city can find enough asphalt to build speed bumps from here to eternity but for some reason there’s none available to fill in the holes that rip a tire off your ride in zero seconds flat.
Movie Review
Anyone But You
Streaming on Netflix
Yes, it’s a Rom-Com!
And a cute one, at that. Sydney Sweeney plays Bea, a law student who hates law. Glen Powell plays Ben, who hates Bea.
Well, kind of. They meet at a coffee shop where Bea proceeds to pull her jeans off and dry them with a hand dryer in the loo. Ben, always a gentleman, offers to go on a date which ends disastrously.
And that’s that until Ben’s friend Claudia decides to marry Bea’s sister Halle in Australia. When Ben and Bea realize they’re going to be spending a great deal of time together, they arrange a truce so as not to suck all the oxygen out of the wedding.
Off to Sydney and the fantastic mansion that Claudia’s mummy and daddy own on the beach. They all go on a hike and Ben gets a spider down his shorts and has to strip buck naked before it bites him somewhere sensitive.
You get the picture. Every conceivable obstacle stands in their way, including old boyfriends, match-making mommas and the Sydney Opera House. One moment they hate each other, the next they’re ripping clothes off. It’s not the best Rom-Com ever, but it has a lot of funny moments and is well worth watching. I highly recommend Anyone But You!
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Recipe: Butter Chicken
Easy to make and delicious to eat, this is the perfect recipe for guests who enjoy Asian food!
4 tsp butter
1 onion chopped
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp minced garlic
2 cups tomato sauce
½ cup cream
1 tsp tandoori seasoning1
1 tsp garam masala2
2 chicken breasts, cut into cubes
1If you can’t find it at the grocery store, mix together 1 tsp of cumin, coriander, paprika and cayenne.
2If you can’t find it at the grocery store, mix together ½ tsp of cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.
Basmati rice, cooked
Shallots, caramelized
Cilantro, minced.
Directions
Fry onion, ginger, garlic, tandoori and masala in butter.
Add chicken cubes and brown on all sides. Remove.
Add tomato sauce and simmer for 30 minutes
Return chicken. Add cream. Let simmer until chicken is cooked through.
Serve on basmati rice.
Sprinkle on shallots and cilantro.
Enjoy!
TV Review
Bridgerton, Season 3
Streaming on Netflix
This is a wonderfully-campy bodice-ripper set in a fictionalized pre-Victorian era. Based on the novels of Julia Quinn, it follows the antics of the upper-class Bridgerton clan as Lady Violet, the matriarch of the family, tries to wed her children.
Season 3 revolves around Penelope Featherington (played by Nicola Coughlan), a hapless redhead facing ghastly spinsterhood unless she finds a groom. She is also the anonymous publisher of a scandal rag that titillates the bored socialites who orbit around the court of Queen Charlotte.
Enter Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton), Lady Violet’s swaggering eldest son, intent on stealing the hearts of as many debutantes as he can. Colin gets entwined by Penelope, however, who needs his help finding a mate.
Most of it makes no sense whatsoever, but there’s lots of dashing about and bonking in carriages to entertain. I highly recommend Bridgerton!
Book Review
Get Shorty
By Elmore Leonard
Elmore Leonard has always been a big favorite of mine. The author populated his novels with a colorful array of drifters, con artists and the law, and his ability to create unique dialogue was so finely honed that he often didn’t bother with quotation marks – you simply understood who was talking by the pace and vocabulary of a character’s words.
Leonard began writing Westerns in the 1950s, so it comes as no surprise that he was well-acquainted with the process of adapting his popular books to film. Get Shorty was written in 1990, and it’s essentially a book about making a movie.
Of course, that’s where the author takes a dog-eared concept and turns it into high satire. Chili Palmer is a loan-shark based in Miami who goes to Los Angeles in search of an errant client. Once in Hollywood, he discovers that being a movie producer is not that different than being a mobster, and decides to switch careers.
He teams up with Harry Zimm, a producer of B-Grade horror flicks, and Karen, his leading lady. They set out to snare Michael Weir, (a rather short) A-list actor, to star in Mr. Lovejoy, an unbelievably bad script. (Fun fact; Leonard based Michael on his dealings with Dustin Hoffman.)
It wouldn’t be an Elmore Leonard novel without a cast of low-life trying to muscle in on the action, including a delightfully nefarious Ray Bones who Chili once shot in the scalp over a stolen jacket and now is hell-bent on revenge. Mayhem of all sorts quickly ensues, with the good guys eventually triumphing.
There’s one more delight; as you read through the book, it’s impossible not to imagine John Travolta, Rene Russo, Gene Hackman and Danny DeVito from the 1995 adaptation gleefully chewing up the scenery. I highly recommend Get Shorty!