It's already December!
When on Earth did that happen?
I
had this past week off from work (school's out on holiday), which was quite a
nice break.
On Monday, the husband and I made a German dinner, with
schnitzel and spaetzle.
Spaetzle is a
German noodle/dumpling hybrid, made out of a simple egg dough.
The spaetzle I made was "vom brett",
which translates roughly as "off the board"; made without a spaetzle
maker, just a wooden cutting board and a knife.
Here's a great (and impressive) video showing the technique for spaetzle
vom brett, and while I didn't do nearly as well as that lady, it still came out
well enough:
Rather than making plain spaetzle, I actually made
kassespaetzle, which is a bit like the German version of macaroni and cheese; I
layered my spaetzle with butter and shredded cheese, which melted and became
absolutely delicious. The spaetzle
itself has a rustic, egg-y taste, and a soft, slightly-doughy texture. If you haven't had it yet, then you need to
try it; my children loved it, and it was a quick and easy side to make, taking
no longer than regular noodles.
(A word from the wise on cleaning up after making
spaetzle:
Whatever touches the dough
needs to get rinsed off immediately.
I
didn't do this, and had to spend a while scrubbing the bowl, board, knife, pot,
and so on.)
I read one article about Frozen before we went to see the
movie, and while it didn't discuss the content of the film specifically, it did
discuss the PG rating it had received... along with nearly every other
children's movie in recent history.
In
the films I grew up watching, characters were thrown off buildings, trampled to
death, and so on.
These films were
rating G.
Recent films have been rated
PG for mild action and peril, which would obviously be in a movie, because what
else is going to
happen?
Beyond the ridiculousness of this, it makes it difficult for parents to decide which films to allow children to watch.
Some PG films are perfectly okay for my children, but many are not appropriate for young children at all.
At that point, why bother having ratings?
***MILD SPOILERS***
My daughter really enjoyed Frozen, which I guess is what
counts in the end.
However, I have to
admit to liking things as a child that, now as an adult, I can see are just
terrible.
This wasn't terrible, but it
had the potential to be a lot better than it was.
I went to this movie hoping for something
similar to Sleeping Beauty, or Beauty and the Beast.
Instead, Frozen was more like Tangled, where
the original story has been somewhat bungled in the effort to make it funny
("entertaining"?).
The comic
relief character in this film, the snowman, did have some jokes that were
genuinely clever, but it still didn't save him from being annoying.
Even my daughter didn't really care for him
much (!!!).
There were two mild villains
in the film, which confused the storyline a bit, and really they were all
secondary to the main plot, the sisters' relationship struggles and the fallout
from that.
While Hans was needed to move
the story, the Duke of Weselton was completely superfluous; I think he was
there only because someone became attached to the gags that could be played at
his expense.
If they had removed those
bits, then there could have been more time spent filling out the real villain
-- maybe even make him actually frightening.
The other thing that bothered me about this film, is that
when Elsa becomes the snow queen, she magically gains a slit on her skirt, high
heels, and a hip-swaying gait.
While
watching the film, I was honestly surprised.
Why does this character gaining her freedom have to be translated into
looking sexy?
The point would still have
been well made without those elements.
I
think the best single indicator of the change was in her hair style. Just that would have been fine.
Beyond that, I did very much like the scene in the lodge,
because it was an actual dose of Scandinavian cultures -- a
lutefisk joke(Norway), and the
sauna (Finland).
But
overall, I was disappointed.
