Sharknado Time Machine

Not too long ago, I wrote about the anticipation I always feel when attending a concert. When I'm really into a band and have been looking forward to the show, my expectations around what is going to take place go into hyper-drive. I have a list of songs I want to hear. I want the band to fun and not too aloof, but aloof enough if that's their thing. I don't know if other people feel this way when they go to shows. Maybe it's just me.

I feel this way about specific types of movies as well. Movies that fall into this category include: MCU movies, anything based on a musical, movies based on books I love, Quentin Tarantino movies, any movie involving a combination of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright, and Star Wars universe movies. Of course, I also love really terrible things so I have to add one major movie type to this list:

SyFy's Sharknado franchise.

 

No one is ever going to say that any of the Sharknado movies are great pieces of cinematic art. They weren't created to be such things. If I wanted high art and sharks, well, I don't know that there is a movie that's both. SyFy movies are supposed to be fun and ridiculous, low on the budget, high on the suspension of disbelief. They're the equivalent of Hallmark Christmas movies for sci-fi/horror set. When the first Sharknado movie premiered way back in 2013,I thought it was hilarious. It reminded me of all those terrible movies I'd stay up late watching when I was a teenager. Like Troll 2 before it, the first Sharknado was campy, totally unbelievable, and the perfect summer movie. Who knew it would become a huge pop culture phenomenon and every celebrity would want to make an appearance in future movies? Who could have predicted that the creators and cast would stick around for six whole movies? But it did and they did.

The summer release of a Sharknado movie became an event. People live Tweeted the movies and created drinking games and themed parties. There's even a book called How to Survive a Sharknado. I know this because my brother bought it for me. On a few occasions, I had a long distance viewing party with my friend, Jessica. I got into the spectacle of the spectacle. A new Sharknado movie was something I looked forward to, even going as far as to put it on my calendar. SyFy had me hooked.

The first three movies were good in the way these types of movies are good. I spent the first movie counting how many ways sharks were killed during the movie and lamenting, but predicting the death of John Heard. The second movie featured both of the Julie Browns (from MTV) as well as everyone who ever worked at NBC/Universal (I assume it's a job requirement to make an appearance). The third one took place partially in DC and Nova returned. My favorite thing about the fourth movie was that I got to make a joke about kickstarting Vince Neil's heart and the Sharknado Twitter-verse thought it was funny (because the Sharknado Twitter-verse is a thing). The fifth movie gave us something none of knew we needed: the Sharknado Sisterhood. I would watch an entire movie about the sisterhood if that was a thing.

Anyway, I didn't even realize the sixth movie was happening. Yes, the fifth one left us with a cliffhanger involving time travel and the youngest son and other stuff I don't really remember. That means very little in the life span of a SyFy movie or really anything that people love. Just because there should be a sequel or another season of something, doesn't mean we get it (I'm looking at you, Joss Whedon). A few weeks ago, it dawned on me that I hadn't heard anything about a sixth movie. I checked Google and found out it was a thing and marked down the date on my calendar.

I have no idea what I watched last night.

I DVR-ed the movie when it originally aired and finally got around to watching it last night. Twenty-two minutes into the movie, I still wasn't really sure what was going on. It was originally about defeating the first sharknado and there were dinosaurs and people who died in the last movie were alive again. April, my least favorite character, learned how to fly a pterodactyl. There was a capacitor, like in Back to the Future. But then they were time traveling, sort of following youngest son Gil, who had come from the future to save the family in the fifth one. He was searching for them, but apparently you can only go back in time once. Eventually, there was an army of evil April robots and we made it back to the original shady deal boat from the very first movie. And then the sharknados stopped and the Shepard family was whole again and Nova was going back to college and John Heard never died...because the sharknados never happened.

Or something.

The Last Sharknado jumped the shark. I would argue that the Sharknado jumped the shark three movies ago, but hey, I'm not a studio executive who makes decisions about what does and doesn't get made. Am I sad I watched the sixth one? Absolutely not. There are three reasons for this:

1. Neil deGrasse Tyson
2. Alaska Thunderfuck
3. Christopher Knight

I expected none of these people to appear in a Sharknado movie, but here they are in the same one. Neil deGrasse Tyson and Alaska even appear in the same section of the movie, which is probably something neither one of them ever thought would happen. Who would cast an astrophysicist and a drag queen as Merlin and Morgana respectively? The Sharknado people, that's who. This specific sequence was the reason I enjoyed the first movie so much. It was over the top, including Merlin declaring, "Who needs science when you have a dragon?" and Fin pulling Excalibur from the stone, except that the sword's blade was in the shape of a chainsaw. Alaska/Morgana disappears with a trademark Alaska "Byeee" that was everything it needed to be and more.

Christopher Knight, better known as Peter Brady (the best Brady brother), was oddly endearing as Nova's grandpa. It's his death, at the jaws of sharks, when Nova is a little girl that leads her to her destiny as a sharknado fighter. This section also gets into a story line that comes up frequently in these movies: Fin being the worst. He and Nova argue about whether she should save her grandpa's life, with Fin being the worst and telling her she can't. Of course, things don't go as planned, and we end up with an army of evil robot Aprils. Christopher Knight as grandpa was the most genuine example of family goodness in the movie. It was another unexpected moment.

The sixth Sharknado was a lot like going to see a band I really like and all they played were crappy songs from their terrible new album; not quite what I wanted but not completely unenjoyable. I've done my job and watched all six movies so you didn't have to.

More importantly, if I don't want to enter a room with the confidence of a mediocre white man, I can enter a room with this thought instead:

Sharknado motivational poster
Frye meme
Merlin

It's a Pistachio World

I can't make Jell-O.

I know that's a pretty shocking statement from a woman who makes homemade marshmallows and a cake that takes three days to make and includes making fresh orange curd (I only make this cake every 10 years). I use gelatin when making marshmallows so it's not like I can't use a Jell-O adjacent product successfully. I think my failure with Jell-O is twofold: 1. My water isn't the right temperature and 2. I don't dissolve the packet enough. Yes, these are simple things that can easily be addressed but since I don't really like Jell-O, my inability to make Jell-O doesn't matter. Good thing I wasn't in my mid-ish 30s in any year from roughly 1952-1973; my inability to make Jell-O would count towards my failures as a woman. No children, no husband, can't make a Jell-O salad - I'd be doomed. Lucky for me I live in 2016 and no one judges me on these things. No really, no one judges me. (Insert sarcastic tone here - sarcasm really should have a punctuation mark.)

Fun Jell-O/gelatin facts*:

• The first reference to geletine was in France in 1682 and involved beef bones. 
• Jell-O pudding flavors have been around since the 1930s, not the 1970s as most people believe.
• The person who actually created what we all know and "love" as Jell-O was an unsuccessful cough syrup salesman and he was equally unsuccessful with Jell-O. He sold the product to his neighbor for $450 and that man, Orator Francis Woodward, would go on to make a success with the product.

I've come to terms with my lack of Jell-O making skills by focusing my baking skills on things that really matter: cakes and cookies. I have a pretty solid repertoire of classics like chocolate chip cookies, cutout cookies, chocolate and vanilla cakes, Guinness cupcakes, and the best banana bread of all time to keep everyone happy and sugared up. I like to add in new things now and then to keep things interesting (the Creamsicle cake went over very well this past summer). My co-workers tend to be the recipients of most of my creations and unless they're lying, I haven't made anything that they wouldn't want repeated. There's also some sort of "Erin bakes this" discussion going around the office; my new hires always seem to know about my baking before I meet them. Someone in the March group specifically asked about the peanut butter and jelly bars (popular with the support team). I guess having a reputation for baking delicious things isn't a bad thing.

Last month during my visit to Austin, I found a handwritten recipe/address book in a vintage store on S. Congress Street. It definitely belongs to a woman and is probably from the late 60s/early 70s. The faded, on the border of falling apart UT notebook is a mix of her own handwritten recipes and recipes from other people, either on index cards or random pieces of paper (like an invoice - one of my favorites). There are a few recipes that either came from a package (Knorr) or were cut from a box (the pistachio cake recipes). She stuffed them into pages in the notebook here and there. Some of the recipes have are crossed out with a large "X". Towards the back, the recipes abruptly stop and it's her address book, mostly addresses in Texas. Each one has a check mark next to it. I haven't decided if the marks and checks are part of a transfer system (maybe she got new books) or if the "X" means she didn't like the recipe and the check means she sent that person something. Maybe she was planning her wedding and this was actually the invitation list. Or a Christmas card list. There are endless possibilities. The best part? I'll never know. Other than the addresses, which belong to actual people, there are no identifying marks or notations in the notebook. She references the person who gave her a recipe in the first few pages but it's a notation like "Mrs. Gibson." Mrs. Gibson could be anyone.

This is the sort of thing I dream about finding in a thrift store. It's a little window into someone's life at a very specific time. Did she like any of the recipes in the book? Were any her go to recipes for parties or special occasions? The idea of Tomato Soup Cake makes me a little queasy but her recipe says to frost with chocolate or lemon icing so it can't be all that bad. Were any of the recipes handed down from her mother or her grandmother? Did she get together with other ladies on her street and trade recipes? Was pistachio pudding the cure-all of the early 1970s? Why were some recipes x-ed out and others were not? Why so many recipes including dates? It's all a mystery. A potentially delicious mystery.

When I came home from Austin I decided that I would work my way through as many of the recipes as I could make. A lot of the recipes call for oleo (margarine) and lard (not happening). Others are combinations I'm not totally sold on; the tomato soup cake falls into that group as does the beef and zucchini recipe. There's also one for sesame shrimp and asparagus; it reminds me of something a trendy single woman would make in a 1972 made for tv movie. There are  few recipes that aren't named so I'm not sure if it's a cake or brownie or something else entirely.

I started with two recipes that I thought would be easy and delicious: oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and pistachio swirl cake. My only concern was whether I'd be able to find pistachio pudding but my trusty local Giant grocery store did not fail me. Not only did they have it but they had the Jell-O version and the store brand. I opted for Jell-O for authenticity. I also bought a brand new tube pan which means I can make my Grandma Garland's blueberry coffee cake sometime in the future. It's a magical cake that needs to be made more often.

I don't make oatmeal cookies often although I have a really great oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. The recipe was easy to follow and to make; it was a wetter dough than regular chocolate chip cookies. The result? A crispier cookie, more like a lace cookie than a regular oatmeal cookie. According to one of my co-workers this is literally the greatest cookie of all time. The only change I made was to use the entire bag of chocolate chips rather than half; you can never have too many chocolate chips in my humble opinion. These cookies are definitely on the "make again" list.

Which leaves us with the pistachio swirl cake. I may not be able to make Jell-O but I can make pudding. I also really like pudding, particularly vanilla pudding when I have a cold. It makes me feel better. I don't know why but it does. Pistachio anything also ranks highly in my book; I'm particularly fond of pistachio ice cream. The pistachio swirl cake intrigued me. Everyone I told about this recipe made a comment about it being so 70s because of the pistachio pudding. I haven't been able to find a definitive timeline of when pudding flavors were introduced but it's possible that pistachio was introduced before the 1970s although that is the decade where it's most popular. It's a key ingredient in Watergate salad which was super popular during that time. In addition to the recipe for Watergate salad the mystery lady shared with me, it still appears on Jell-O pistachio pudding boxes. Just in case.

The cake was the sleeper hit of these two recipes. Everyone who tried it loved it and a few asked if I'd make it again. The swirl part is a mix of cinnamon, sugar, and walnuts. I could have added more of that; next time I will. I want a more defined swirl. I hate the word "moist' but it's the only word to describe how perfect this cake turned out to be. The pudding was definitely responsible for that. Even after sitting out, lightly wrapped, it was still fresh and delicious. I was impressed with the cleanness of the cake once it was out of the pan; sometimes bundt cakes don't like to pop out of pans cleanly. This causes a lopsided cake but that didn't happen this time. I hated to cut into such a beautiful creation. 

Pistachio swirl cake is also on the "make again" list. There's another pistachio cake recipe involving chocolate (it's a marble cake); I'll make that one soon enough. Overall, I'm pleased with my the first set of recipes from the book. Granted, I picked two of the easier ones but I had to start somewhere. There are lots more to try although I want to avoid the zucchini recipe for as long as possible. It's one of my least favorite vegetables. Maybe I can make for someone who really enjoys zucchini and I won't have to try it at all.

I have a similar recipe book and my mother has a recipe card box. Both are stuffed with handwritten recipes and recipes we've clipped from magazines or boxes of one thing or another. In my mother's recipe box, she has recipe cards from both of my grandmothers. I love those the most; a keepsake of their handwriting and the food they made. Several of my friends and co-workers mentioned similar notebooks and boxes in their own families. One friend shared that the copy she has of her grandmother's recipes is missing ingredients or has incorrect amounts; she often has to call her mother to confirm things while in the middle of a recipe. She figures her grandmother got tired; her book is the third one her grandmother made (the others are for her mother and sister).

Finding the UT book (as I'm calling it) makes me wonder what will happen to my own recipe book one day. Will it end up staying in the family; maybe with my cousins or one of their children if I don't have my own children? Will whoever inherits it end of throwing it away? Or maybe it makes its way into a donation pile and winds up in a vintage or thrift store (will those even exist?) waiting for someone like me to find it and scoop it up like a vintage designer handbag? The hopeless romantic in me hopes it has a long and wondrous life.

Time for you to help me: Which UT book recipe should I make next? Your choices are:

• Tomato Soup Cake
• Date Nut Loaf
• Pistachio Marble Cake
• Sesame Shrimp and Asparagus
• Strawberry Graham Cake
• No-Name Cake Recipe.

Share your vote in the comments! I'll make the one with the most votes and of course, give you all the details right here on The Island of Misfit Toys!!


*From Linda Stradley, What's Cooking America
Photos by me

Walking in Alameda

Alameda might be the perfect place for walking. It's an island so it's flat and designed to get you where you need to go even without some form of motorized or wheeled transportation. Also, the speed limit on the entire island is 25 mph and there are lots of pedestrian friendly cross areas so you don't feel like you're going to get hit by a car when you cross the street. (I'm talking to you, Washington, DC. Stop being a jerk when it comes to crosswalks.)

This is great for me because I love to walk for exercise. I don't like the gym and find it difficult to motivate myself to go. Gyms make me nervous and slightly self-conscious. I'm going to have to suck it up and go when I move. My new building has a great fitness center and I would be an idiot if I didn't use it (also I'm paying for it so I would be wasting money). But until then, I'm going to enjoy my walks around Alameda. I walk between 2-3 miles along the same route at least five times a week. I walk up San Jose to Park Street (or to Broadway) and then I walk back to Grand Street (I wish it was Grand Avenue-that sounds so much better) and then back to my building.

Along the way, I'm treated to some beautiful homes, lovely flowers, weird lawn decorations, and some homes that can only be described as "in need of a hug and some paint." When I tell people that one of the things that I liked immediately about Alameda when I moved here was that it reminded me of New Orleans, I get weird looks. If you know New Orleans houses and you've been to Alameda, the similarities are pretty amazing. There are all styles of homes (Victorians, Mission style, Tudors, shotguns, ranch style, bungalows) painted boring beige to wild purple. Here are two of my favorite houses on my walk:

This is on the corner of Willow and San Jose. Gorgeous. The pink house is on San Jose-it's such a great color.






For today's walk I decided that I wanted to change up my path a bit and go see the Alameda Spite House. Seeing this house is on my list of things to do before I move. Yes, we have our own spite house in Alameda. A spite house, a tiki bar, a bowling alley-what else do we need? A spite house is a house built to irritate a neighbor, city, or other parties with some type of land stake. According to Wikipedia (the lazy blogger's best friend), they're usually obstructions or have designs that would be prohibitive to the neighbor(s). Disputes over inheritance, cities taking land for public spaces, and neighbors who dislike one another seem to be the chief reasons spite houses exist.

Charles Froling built the Alameda Spite House in the early 1900s. He had inherited land and intended to build his dream home. The state of California saw otherwise and took a large portion of Froling's land to build a street. He built the home to fit the strip of land left to him: 10 feet (3.0 m) deep, 54 feet (16 m) long and 20 feet (6.1 m) high.

I had read about this house when I was researching places to live in the East Bay. I love stories like this. They add an odd character to a place. The address wasn't listed on either of the sites I originally looked at. When I moved here I asked a few people about the house. Most didn't know what I was talking about. One person did tell me the address but I forgot (and didn't write it down). When I posted my things to do post, Island reader Sue posted the address for me. Thanks Sue!

So today I set out for the Alameda Spite House. I had mixed feelings about taking pictures - I'm sure the residents are used to it but I try to be stealthy since I wouldn't want people standing outside my house snapping away.  I'll say this (just in case the current owners ever read this): the house is really lovely. You can tell they love their home and take excellent care of it.

This was about a block away and I thought it was fun.

Back view - this is what I saw first.

Across the street view

Front view- look at how close the two houses are.

I can't say that the house was exactly what I expected. I'm not really sure what I expected at all. Most people don't even know it's there and I find that fascinating. I've driven past it many times on my way to the theater and didn't realize I had driven past. Charles Froling is probably still pretty mad about the whole "California took my land" thing but I hope that he is at least enjoying that his home is still there, inhabited by people who clearly love and care for it. And that there are people like me whose curiosity always gets the better of them and they have to search out hidden treasures like this house.

On a side note, Happy 75th Birthday to the Golden Gate Bridge! I would come see you today, GG, but there are probably 8 million people there already and I don't want to deal with the crowds. We do have a date before I move as I try to get over my bridge fear by walking further across than I have before. I don't have to cross the bridge, just walk about halfway. I think that's a reasonable goal.

My first attempt on New Year's Day