Food and Movies

Yesterday I started to crave a big cheeseburger. Not the kind of cheeseburger you can buy at a fast food restaurant but the kind that is massive and requires two hands and that you spend $10 for. And David, being the absolutely lovely and doting husband that he is, took me to Chili's to get one such hamburger. It was delicious. Every so often, a nice big cheeseburger is exactly the kind of thing I want to eat. Yum. After eating our Chili's-to-Go (the wait was too long and we had tickets to the movies), we got in line for the 9:10pm showing of The Dark Knight. We were joined by David's friend from work, Matt, who had thankfully purchased our tickets in advance or else we would have been out of luck, as all the showings were selling out. The movie is over two and a half hours long but the good kind of long, where you don't even realize how long you've been sitting there since you are so enthralled with the story. It was an excellent movie with excellent performances by all the actors involved. (Maggie Gyllenhaal is a much better Rachel Dawes than Katie Holmes, for the record and the Joker is quite funny in a bizarre sadistic way.) There were a few minor plot holes and a few moments when I was a little confused. The explainations are there, but were sometimes obscured by noise or fast-talking so that I was left a little unsure of what just happened. And thankfully this isn't the type of superhero movie that includes action scenes and big explosions for the mere sake of having big action sequences and big fights. It all felt very natural (as natural as these movies can get) and more importantly, the movie made me think. I like the movie and would recommend it to anyone, but I can't say that I loved it. I don't think it's the type of movie you claim to "love" because of the dark themes and gruesome reality that it presents.

In other news, I am trying to find some new recipes. I made a maple glazed chicken breast two nights ago that was a huge success (another good recipe from eatinghealthy.com) but I have been struggling to find good vegetarian recipes. I feel like I've been eating way too much meat and it feels like its weighing me down. I existed on pasta and quesadillas for the last two years so my body doesn't want to accept all the meat I've been putting into my body these days. But good vegetarian meals are hard to come by (except in pasta form) and I need a greater diversity in my food. As I've discovered while reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, humans are not meant to be the big meat eaters that we are. Or at least historically, meat has never been consumed on such a regular basis. But government policies and corn has driven down the price of meat making it an affordable everyday commodity. Which is fantastic but it has also changed the way we eat and how we view our meals. I grew up on meat and potatoes so I struggle against the feeling that every meal should include some meat. But then I have a hard time finding recipes that don't include meat. And a lot of the meat that is produced and sold for cheap prices can be quite harmful to humans. It's quite the conumdrum. So if you have any good recipes out there (vegetarian or not) let me know. I'm on the lookout for good food that is good for me. Although right now, that frozen pizza in my freezer is sounding pretty good.