Manteca!

Okay, here is my official holiday post. It will be followed in a few weeks with my post holiday post. That doesn't sound right, but I'm rolling with it. Moving on. So this year, I decided to make cookies for Christmas. I don't know what came over me except that I am sick of going to the wine store and tying ribbons around wine that I pick by price and foreign-ity of label, because I don't really know how any of it tastes. I know foregin-ity isn't a word, but I like it okay. Anyway, this year, I endeavored to actually use my oven, which I bought on craigslist for $75 bucks. I figured I should get my money's worth.

So I called up my mamacita and asked her how to make polvorones, aka the mexican wedding cookie aka the thing that makes me fatter every year especially when combined with tamales. She found a recipe from my cousin and so I was off to the store to buy the following:

1 5 pound bag of flour
1 5 pound bag of sugar
2 pounds of manteca aka lard
cinnimon
anis
1 cookie sheet and one xmas bell cookie cutter because I don't cook

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I got home, opened a beer, put on The Notebook and I was off to work. I mixed my 8 cups of flour with my 2 cups of sugar with my whopping 1 1/2 pounds of manteca together with my hands. It was gooshy. It smelled like refried beans. It was gross. I made some anis and cinnamon tea and put that in there with a questionable egg that was in my fridge. Do eggs go bad? I don't know. But it didn't smell bad so I went with it. Let other people get sick. Who cares.

I rolled out my dough and I started to cut the cookies. I put them on the sheet, baked them, rolled them in the sugar and voila - I had polvorones! Wow, who knew that baking could be so fulfilling? It was crazy. People should use their ovens more often.

Then it was time to taste test the polvorones. I took a little bite. Flakey. Sweet. Mixed with a little bit of....what is that taste....I can't quite tell....um.....animal fat. My polvorones tasted like dead pig. All I could taste was the manteca. I ate two and my stomach was a mess the rest of the night. I'm not used to eating all that manteca. It was really upsetting. I asked my mom to taste her polvorones. Do they taste like dead cow? No, she said. They taste like cookies. Maybe I was missing something because mine tasted like I was eating a dead pig rolled in sugar. I was angry.

I tried one the next day. Nope. Still tasted like dead animal.

I asked my mom what I should do. Should I go buy Shortening? The fat of the white people? Mexicans keep it real with Manteca. White people buy Crisco. She told me to try it.

So the next day, I opened another beer, turned on The Notebook again, and tried the process over, this time with shortening. It worked. My polvorones were fantastic. They didn't taste bad. They were delicious. So delicious that I wanted to eat them all. But I restrained.

I guess I'll just call my cookies polvoroneys because they have a little bit of white people in them. But I promise to never eat out of an Ortega Taco Kit. Then I'd be in trouble.

Stay tuned for next week when I give the recap of My Big Fat Mexican Christmas. Let's see who gets drunk by noon, let's see who doesn't show up, let's see who only brings 2 liters of sodas to the potluck. I hope the baby jesus doesn't cry.

If Rachel & Ryan can do it...so can you!

This is for all my New York friends (you know how you are suckas) who are making the walking trek across the city due to the strike. Know that you are getting good cardio done. Know that you will have tight gluts. Know that you just might spot the cutest couple in the world. A little McGosling can always put a little hop in your step during that 6 mile walk to or from work. Normally, I complain about all the human contact that I am bombarded with on the streets of New York. But if I had to walk across the city and ran into these guys, I wouldn't mind so much. Hang in there guys!

Things That Make Me Cringe

The Cringe Factor is supremely underrated. When I watched the Ashlee Simpson snafu on SNL with my comadres, one of them, "The Baby", got so embarrassed for La Ashlee that she changed the channel and we missed half of the how-down dance. There is something about the Cringe Factor that is just emotionally indefinable. I mean, it's so spectacularly terrible that you can't believe your eyes, your brain doesn't know what to do, and there is a schism that often paralyzes you into half laughter, half open mouthed wonder.

Today I found a terribly cringe worthy moment online. Witness it ladies and gentleman. Clay Aikin's flirtation with heterosexuality. Poor Kelly Clarkson. I'm sure this cost her thousands in therapy bills.

CLICK HERE...Clay's not gay...Okay, maybe a little...CLICK HERE

Huh?

I have no words. No words. Okay, maybe a few words. Like what the fuck is going on in this picture? Is that world so warped that this is appropriate public behavior? I don't know what to say, which is I guess appropriate, since Chaplin made silent movies. Oh. My. God. Seek. Help. Now. This is what happens when you don't listen to your trusted assistant. Where is Arlene, J.Lo? You need to keep that bitch as close as Jessica Simpson keeps CaCee Corncob. Buy her a car. Something. For the love of God, woman. You were busted already, but if there were any doubt before, it's over now. He's ruined you.

[source]

AGRO

I've had a almost a week to sit with my feelings about King Kong. And you know what? It wasn't just that it wasn't my kind of movie. It was one person's kind of movie. It's the movie that smelly, IT, virgin nerds like. It's the kind of movie made for people who would rather live in a fantasy world and play Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering at Comicon because they are so socially inept that they can't function in the real world with the rest of us. It's the kind of movie for people like that dork on Ain't It Cool News or Roger Ebert or that guy who sat next to you in science lab with boogers. It's the kind of movie that makes you think again when you sit in a movie theatre seat and things are sticky (ew!). So when people try and tell you that King Kong is some epic movie where they were just a little bored, but it was a Peter Jackson film, so it's okay that their ass fell asleep - well - they are lying to you! When you hear commercials with that "serious film voice over" voice, know that people are fucking with your head. It's hardly a serious movie, let alone a movie at all. What a load of crap! ARGH!!!

Kong Yawn

So my very nice friend invited me to see a preview screening of KING KONG. And while I would normally have no desire to see a movie about a big Ape, I went for the chicken wings and snacks that were provided before the show. Universal makes a mean peanut butter cookie, let me tell you.
So King Kong is probably one of the most anticipated movies of Christmas, along with the Chinese Geisha and the Gay Cowboys. You know that everyone is going to go on Christmas day to go see this big epic action film by the "DIRECTOR OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS!". Well I'm glad I got it over with because, damn, that movie was the most ridiculous waste of 3 hours and 10 minutes of my life next to my last visit to the DMV. Someone needs to have a talk with my boy Peter Jackson because he has been smoking the Hobbit Hooka too long and hard if he thinks that people want to sit through shit like that for that long. Here are some rules for PJ when he starts thinking about his next movie:



1. Long action sequences are boring. After 2 minutes, we get it. We don't need to drag it on for 10 minutes. I don't like to run that much, let alone watch other people do it.

2. Dialogue is a important. 10 minutes with no dialogue makes you, how should I put this delicately, FUCKING BORED! This isn't the age of silent film for the love of christ. Let the actors speak so that they can earn their salaries.

3. Jack Black is a comedian. Jack Black is not a dramatic actor. He just isn't. I love him in School of Rock, but I just can't take him seriously with that smirk on his face. Sorry.

4. A good wig maker will make or break your movie. When I have to see people's fake hair lines 40 feet high, it just takes me out of the movie. I have to be honest here. I can't stand looking at Naomi Watts with shitty hair. I'm sure that King Kong was annoyed by it too. I know he loved her so he moved past it. But why are you making the rest of us suffer? Take a cue from Nic Cage. He works that shit into his budgets.

5. Dudes climbing mountains isn't that interesting. When the hobbits climbed the mountains for a half an hour in the Lord of the Rings, I got really pissed. It made me mad. Why? Because I didn't pay to see a fucking nature documentary about Mount Everest! CGI alone, does not a good story make. So why do people have to be all up in the mountains again in King Kong? We've seen it. We've had our fill. For the love of God, move on. The rest of us have.

6. Colin Hanks sucks. He is ugly. He looks like his dad. He sounds like his dad. He walks like his dad. He probably bones like his dad. He probably only scores with ugly chicks. I'm over it. Why do people put this retard in their movies? He's so fucking annoying. I want to punch him in the face. Your face is stupid Colin. YOU HEAR ME?!

7. Naomi Watts needs motivation. I have to take a moment and give some props to Naomi Watts because sister acted on a gimble behind a greenscreen with a bunch of New Zealanders standing around eating craft service and somehow she had to get all up in her character and pretend she was falling in love with a big monkey who looks like my dog, Buddy. So props to you Naomi. But is it just me, or did you look the same in every scene?

THE MANY FACES OF NAOMI

In the end, I know I'm just not the right audience for this movie. I'm not making any illusions. The top of my Christmas Movie List right now includes The Family Stone, Rumor Has it, Syriana and Brokeback Mountain. I liked Peter Jackson circa Heavenly Creatures, but that's just me. I'm sure that Peter Jackson could give a flying fuck what I think of his movie and that it will rake in the bucks for Uni, but next time, I'll pass. Unless there's cookies.

Jen Garner Explodes!

It's official after an 18 month gestation period, Jennifer Garner finally gave birth to a baby girl. After much speculation that she had actually swallowed Jennifer Lopez (using her unhingable man-jaw) and kept her prisoner in her belly, rumors were squelched when she actually birthed the Garner/Affleck Zygote named Violet on Thursday. Affleck was on hand with a bottle filled with Starbucks Vanilla Soy Lattes for both mom and baby. Marc Anthony cackled in evil laughter after fooling us all for so long.

Photo: A Socialite's Life