1. I took out another package of chicken party wings, thawed them, and decided to make something I'd never tried before: Thai green curry wings.
I began by mixing flour, coriander, allspice, and salt in a bowl and, after patting the thawed wings dry with paper towels, I tossed the wings in this mixture. I then drizzled vegetable oil over the wings and tossed them some more.
I placed the wings on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and baked them at 375 degrees for about 50 minutes.
In the meantime, I combined melted butter, fish sauce, Thai green curry paste, a little brown sugar, a splash of soy sauce, and some crumbled lime kaffir leaves in a bowl and whisked it.
I removed the wings from the oven, let them cool a bit, and then tossed the wings in the butter/curry paste mixture I just made.
I placed the wings back on the parchment paper and baked them for about 10 more minutes.
I also made a batch of jasmine rice.
So that was our dinner tonight and will be Debbie's lunch tomorrow.
My experiment worked.
Now I'm confident that I can make Buffalo wings, Teriyaki wings, and Thai curry wings.
We used to order Old Bay wings at the Old Line Bistro in Beltsville, MD.
I'd like to try to make that kind of wing some time.
2. I had a fun time for about twenty minutes on Facebook today.
A former Eugene, OR resident, Richard La Rosa, administers a nostalgic Facebook group page called Long Live Lenny's Nosh Bar. Lenny's Nosh Bar was a late night joint on E. 13th until it was overtaken by the expansion of the Sacred Heart hospital in that neighborhood.
I didn't hang out at Lenny's much at all, but I had students at the U of O who did and a certain number of the Lenny's crowd also hung out at the Allann Bros Beanery on E. 14th (former site of Mama's Homefried Truck Stop; current location of Pegasus Pizza) where I often studied, graded papers, and socialized.
Well, today, I read a post by Richard La Rosa memorializing Steve Bove, the proprietor of Cinema 7, an art house movie theater that operated in the Atrium Building in Eugene for just shy of fifteen years.
I frequented Cinema 7. Many of my very best movie viewing experiences occurred there.
In the thread that grew out of Richard La Rosa's original post, Richard recalled Cinema 7's last night.
It was November 12, 1987.
Steve Bove played The Man Who Would Be King as the Cinema 7's last hurrah.
I'd seen this movie about eight years earlier at Cinema 7 as part of a double feature with Robin and Marian.
I attended Cinema 7's last movie on November 12, 1987 and experienced a flood of joy and gratitude for the many invigorating movies I'd seen there over the years and also felt grief that this jewel of a movie house was closing.
I was a nervous, anxiety-filled graduate student at the Univ. of Oregon, living in constant fear of failure.
For many of my years in graduate school, I over studied, driven by anxiety, and I thought a lot today about how I wish I could have been more carefree during those years.
Yes, I did take breaks from my compulsive study habits and go to movies at Cinema 7 and the Bijou.
Today, as I read people's memories of Lenny's Nosh Bar and their love of the punk/new wave local bands that played in Eugene back then, it made me ache that I missed out on so much of that while reading, reading, reading, writing papers and preparing for field exams, the dark cloud of fear of failure always hovering over me.
And, as it turned out, I experienced enough success in grad school that I got to work great jobs teaching at the U of O, Whitworth, and Lane Community College.
But, I didn't finish my doctorate and so, in that way, realized my fears of failure.
It's been thirty years since I left graduate school.
It's been thirty-five years since Cinema 7 closed and thirty-seven years since Lenny's went out of business.
All is not lost, though! I learned today that the Bijou Arts Cinema on E. 13th in Eugene has reopened in the same building with a new name, the Art House.
On Saturday, November 5th, I'll get to return to the Wilcox Building, home of the Bijou/Art House and watch the Grateful Dead's April 17, 1972 show at Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen during their awesome Europe '72 tour.
I'm eager to see and hear the show and eager to see the new and reimagined Art House.
Most of all, I'm looking forward to being back in that building again.
Like Cinema 7, many of the very best movie going experiences I've had in the last 40 years happened in the former Bijou Arts Cinema.
I'm elated that that venue has re-opened. I've looked over what they are showing over the next month and it's a stimulating combination of independent and international movies, music films, opera, live theater on film, a David Lynch retrospective, and much more.
3. This evening, Christy and I attended the October KHS All-Class Reunion meeting.
Things are moving apace.
Bands will play on Friday and Saturday.
T-shirts, sweatshirts, and canvas bags will be available to order.
There will be food trucks.
The Saturday BBQ dinner is taking shape.
Signs for businesses to put up and to go elsewhere are in the works.
Preparations are under way for a car show.
Plans are developing for tours.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
It seems to me that for an event that's taking place July 21-23, 2023, planning is going very well.
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