Our friend Peter took us to a Korean BBQ last week. All you can eat meat for $16. You're presented with platters of steak, ribs, pork, chicken, salmon, squid, liver, sausage etc. all raw and all marinated in various deliciousness. On each table is a gas powered BBQ grill and you and your dining companions try to put as much meat as you can on, whilst also trying to look like you don't care that someone just stole that perfectly cooked piece of steak that you'd been carefully turning every 30 seconds and had left if for just a moment while you put on some chicken to go with it. I'm over it, it's no big deal.
But the meat keeps coming, they bring out platter after platter, each one more delicious than the last. In fact, you can't cook fast enough to stem the oncoming tide of fresh meat. Eventually, you start cooking things you don't want, just to make space on the table. A whole platter of liver is cooked in seconds and enthusiastically offered around the table. It doesn't help that no-one knows what cooked squid looks like, or at least how it differs from raw (and no doubt poisonous) squid. Best leave it a few more minutes. Why are we even cooking squid when there are two more platters of steak and ribs to cook?
Some people fill up on rice that they stubbornly insist is delicious on its own. They know who they are. It could be the greatest rice in the world, gently seasoned with white truffle oil and saffron, I'll stick with the meat.
I don't know why it's fun to pay to have to cook your own meal, but it is. If you've never done it, I recommend it. Don't bother with the squid though.
Part 2: - in which I'm going to controversial.
I'm basing this on limited experience and merely anecdotal evidence, I'm not saying that it's true. But it seems that Canadians are more interested in beer than the English (hereafter known as Englishers). This may be symptomatic of having lived in Cambridge where the chance of finding a pub not owned by Greene King in the centre of town is becoming increasingly difficult, but in the pubs I've frequented so far in Toronto, the choice of beers is huge. After our Korean meat extravaganza, we headed to barVolo(?) for a drink before the main event of the evening. Now, normally in an English pub there would be the brewery's standard pints and maybe two or three guest pints. Here, they had two home brewed beers and over 20 different guest beers. What seems to be the difference here is that there is a massive market for local micro-breweries and brewpubs.
I know that there are hundreds of micro-breweries in England, and hundreds of excellent beer-focused pubs, I'm just pleasantly surprised that in Toronto they have more choice than the expected Coors and Budweiser. Thank goodness for making friends with Medievalists, they know and appreciate their beer!
Part 3: - in which I get over excited by James Bond.
I had to wait a whole two weeks after the UK release of Skyfall before it opened here. In preparation I went to the "Designing 007: - 50 Years of Bond" exhibition. They had a large selection of original props, costumes and set designs, trying to highlight how much Bond has influenced style over the years. I always think that Bond is best when he isn't trying to be fashionable (hint hint Roger Moore). All the best Bond films have quite a timeless quality to them, none more so than Skyfall. I don't think that it's any coincidence that this film has been a real success, critically and commercially. The best parts of the film have a very timeless quality to them. The finale set in Scotland could have been taken straight from any era of the Bond films, in fact a lot of it is very reminiscent of Sean Connery running away from the helicopter at the end of From Russia With Love. I thought that the whole film felt very much like a throwback to earlier Bond films.
I've been a fan of Sam Mendes and Roger Deakins for quite a while now and as soon as I heard that they would both be working together on Skyfall, I knew there was the possibility that this would be a good'un. I don't think it's perfect, there are still a few bits which I thought didn't work too well and it seems that the Bond films recent move away from the misogyny of the earlier films has taken a step backward; every woman in this film ended up dead or working behind a desk. Having said that, the film's climax in Scotland was brilliant, and the cinematography was stunningly beautiful.
Fave bits: - The bike chase over the roofs of Istanbul, Bond adjusting his cuffs after jumping onto the train, Silva's entrance, the deserted island, Kincade and the final scene in M's office.
I have only one major complaint. The gun barrel sequence needs to be back at the start of the film, I really don't understand why they've started putting it at the end of the film. I hope they get it right next time.
Best intro? Thunderball
Worst? Die another day. (Stupid bullet.)
