Happy new year!

§ The Pocket Operator has become my newest obsession. I had forgotten how much I enjoy experimenting with little musical toys. Begin the countdown to when I finally give up and buy an OP-1.

§ I got on a serious weird movie kick this week after watching Triangle of Sadness after Alex Cox and Merlin Mann mentioned it on a recent episode of their Do By Friday podcast.

Triangle of Sadness was alright but I thought The Square, also by Ruben Östlund, was amazing. Although I will admit that some of my enjoyment could be a consequence of going to art school and seeing a lot of hilariously embarrassing aspects of myself in many of the characters.

After watching the two Östlund movies I inevitably had to see The Lobster, a movie I had been avoiding since seeing The Killing of a Sacred Deer a while back and not enjoying it much at all. I ended up loving The Lobster! It might be that Lanthimos writes such amazingly strange, surreal, uncomfortable dialog that I find it all too disturbing in a horror movie but hilarious in a comedy.

§ Re Triangle of Sadness: this song has been stuck in my heard since seeing the movie.

§ There was an unbelievable pink sunset on Wednesday evening that I was actually able to capture a nice photo of. This is usually the type of situation that I find Apple’s computational photography engine “corrects” for, making it really a difficult subject to photograph.

§ Links

§ Recipes

The unintentional theme this week was cabbage which is definitely a new favorite vegetable — kimchi, sauerkraut, what’s not to like?

  • Kapusniak, Polish kielbasa and cabbage soup
    • This was one of the best meals I have made in a really long time. Highly recommended. The only thing I will do differently next time is add a liiiitle more chicken broth to thin it out slightly.
    • Also, here is a video of Kenji making this recipe
    • JANUARY 8 UPDATE: I just realized that when I first made this recipe and wrote the above I had accidentally used half of the specified amount of broth — 4 cups instead of 8 cups — which explains a lot! So now I would suggest either using somewhere around 6 cups of broth or letting the whole soup boil down and condense for a while. Still a great recipe.
  • Cabbage Rolls
    • This turned out better than I expected but also was more of a pain than it was worth.
  • Kimchi soup
    • I like spicy foods but this was too spicy for me. It could be the chili flakes I used though. Next time I will either use less chili flakes or a different brand.
  • Thai-style beef with basil and chiles
    • Not too special but pretty good! I made this one to have with the kimchi soup and it was a good sidekick. Caroline really liked it though.