a few lines about movies and cooking

i/we have been watching lots of movies on video lately and have the following to report:

some of the videos i would recommend for rental: tadpole, citizen ruth (by the same guy behind election and about schmidt), what's eating gilbert grape (who knew i would actually like leonardo dicaprio in anything?), monster's ball (yes, halle berry deserved the oscar), austin powers and goldmember (come on, it's total brain candy-plus the cameos and dance numbers are hilarious)

some that i would not recommend: perfume (altho there are some good performances in it, there's a reason it went straight to video), MIB II (not nearly as good as the first one)

some i hope to rent sooner rather than later: secretary, far from heaven

and now cooking (this has been floating around in my head for a long long time). i LOVE making (and eating) soups. especially in the winter-they cook for a long time (usually) and warm up the house as well as making the house smell yummy.

i would highly recommend these recipes if you share my love of the soup course:
-Asparagus leek soup: super-dee-duper-dee easy to make. i add a few diced yukon gold potatoes which makes it nice and thick. i also add a little milk instead of sour cream. serve with biscuits or some crusty sourdough french bread...mmmmmm
-spicy beef stew: this turns out perfect every time, meat tender, veggies soft, broth yummy. and what could be easier than putting all the ingredients in a pot and throwing it in the oven for 4 hours?
-hot and sour soup: hot and sour soup is the best decongestant. don't believe me? try it for yourself. since we have yet to find hot and sour soup in the upper valley as good as we used to get in palo alto, i looked up the recipe. yes, this recipe has the typical martha stewart heavy prep ('2 carrots...cut into matchsticks...' yeah right. bite me), but once you start cooking, it goes really quickly. honest. plus it makes a lot of soup. plus it's loaded with protein (chicken, egg and tofu). if you like it really hot (chemically), in addition to the black pepper you'll need to add some white pepper and a pinch of cayenne. do a very little bit of the extra pepper(s), esp cayenne. wait a few minutes and taste a little. a little cayenne goes a long way, and the soup will often taste hotter (chemically) the next day.

i was going to continue on the cooking theme with a little homily about cookbook authors, but i'll save that for another day.