Sugar, Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck

Sugar is the story of Miguel “Sugar” Santos, a Dominican baseball player with talent and a desire to play professional baseball in the United States. In the Dominican Republic, major league scouts are trawling for talent, vigilant but instructive in the game and the profession of being a baseball player, to the young men anxious for their chance and shot at big-league fame and fortune. Sugar’s curveball brings him to a minor league farm team in Iowa. The film communicates the joy and wonder of Sugar’s initial exposure to the US but also shows the alienation and isolation he experiences. He boards with an older couple on their farm. This sounds like an agreeable arrangement—put the kid into a family so he can feel at home. The reality is not nearly so simple or convenient. Sugar is not the first ball player in this home, and he certainly won’t be the last. Sugar is, to the baseball community and his Iowa hosts, merely a commodity, although they would not view the situation in such stark terms. His fortunes and future depend on his ability to perform satisfactorily on the baseball diamond. When Sugar begins to struggle on the field, he’s faced with a choice as to what his future will be and how he will handle the adversity he’s facing. Algenis Perez Soto as Sugar does a great job of conveying both the exhilaration of opportunity and the fear of failure in a county where everything is foreign, including ordering a meal in a diner. This isn’t a feel-good, edge-of-your-seat film where you know that Sugar will pull it together and rise to the top. Life’s like that for a very few, and this film shows the path is not easy and success is not guaranteed.  

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

An epistolary tale? What a novel idea. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) The format seems quaint and brings back unwelcome memories of college and slogging through Les Liaisons dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos (but I like the movies versions Dangerous Liaisons and Valmont), La Nouvelle Héloïse by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and (shudder) Clarissa by Samuel Richardson. I heard recently that there was an epistolary novel not of letters but text messages. I can’t even begin to fathom it. I inevitably think at the end of such stories of how much more engaging they might have been if they were told in a simple narrative. So too with The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It feels old-fashioned. That can often be a good trait, but here I think it merely shows the slightness of the story. It is the story of a writer who, post World War II comes to the island of Guernsey, which had been occupied by German soldiers throughout the war. This part was interesting to me. I had no idea that this had happened and wondered at the conditions that the residents must have lived under. This book only scratches at the surface of it. Instead, it focuses on an intrepid group who manage, by accident, to form a literary society, one where, as luck would have it, every member, no matter their station or education or ability, manages to find the perfect book not just to enrich their lives but to see them through the war. Oh and there’s a rather predictable love story thrown in for good measure. There is the laundry list of stock characters: the sympathetic gay man; the understanding German officer; the selfless and brave islander ready to sacrifice herself for others; the orphaned, precocious child; the quiet, brooding hero; the rich American; and Oscar Wilde. No kidding. I read it in about a day and half, so there is not much time commitment to give to it or to rue having wasted at the end of it.

Pork Stew with Hard Cider, Pearl Onions, and Potatoes

This is a time consuming recipe that I thought would be great for a snowy, cold lazy winter day and night. I found the recipe in the February 2010 issue of Bon Appetit magazine. For a little background, pork was only okay in taste, in my opinion. That all changed when I bought some at my local farmer’s market, despite the higher price. What a stunning discovery! The pork chops and bacon actually tasted like they came from an animal. I was a convert and a beginner food-source snob.

My new attitude is well and good, but it’s winter now and the farmer’s markets are closed, Whole Foods isn’t convenient or economical, and so I have to take what I can get. I had never tried a pork stew before but, looking for new ways to make grocery store pork taste like something, I thought the recipe sounded interesting. It had parsnips in it, too, a vegetable I hadn’t yet tried to prepare myself. That was another plus this recipe had going for it because I needed something to help me out of my vegetable rut. You know, routine cooking with all the old faithfuls—beans, peas, carrots, broccoli, and asparagus on the grill in summer. I only recently started eating beets despite hating them my entire life because I think they taste like dirt. But, I hear they are good for your liver and, with the wine that I drink, I could use all the help I can get. Surprisingly, the flavor of beets grew on me as well. Anyway, a red light should have gone off in my head when I was reading the list of ingredients. You see, I’m the kind of person that doesn’t like my food to touch. Moreover, I eat one thing at a time until it’s gone—all the meat, then the potatoes, then the vegetables. I’m happy with this system and don’t plan to change either. So, when I saw that there were apples in the stew, I should have stopped to consider what I was planning.

The pork and vegetables smelled heavenly as the stew was simmering. I think I would have enjoyed it enormously if I had stopped before adding the final ingredients—Calvados (apple brandy), apples, and mustard. Those last few items seemed to throw the stew into overdrive. There was a whole lot going on in that pot and a whole lot of competing flavors in each mouthful. It didn’t help that I took the recommendation in the magazine and served Hard Cider with the stew instead of a nice Gewürztraminer like I was considering. It was apple overdose. On the Epicurious website, most reviewers who did not add the Calvados loved the stew, so maybe that makes the difference. Even hearing that, I don’t think I would make this recipe again, even with the changes and omissions. It really was laborious for a so-so result.

Here's the link to the recipe:  Pork Stew with Hard Cider Pearl Onions and Potatoes

Bright Star, directed by Jane Campion

I just watched the video Bright Star with Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw. I seemed to recall that it didn't get great reviews when it was released, but I wanted to see it anyway since I'm a sucker for period romances, especially if they have a literary theme. It's the story of poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne. My opinion of the story? Gosh, the cinematography was beautiful. I thought for a while trying to figure out whether it was the character Fanny or Abbie Cornish playing Fanny that I disliked. I think the answer is both. Fanny is brash and outspoken, with strong opinions and a healthy sense of self. These qualities were apparent. She seemed so modern to me, almost out of place, and this was disconcerting and continually prevented me from losing myself in the story. I can imagine that would be exactly why another person would like it, until Fanny starts mooning over Keats, that is. And, despite the poetry, I couldn't figure out what she or Keats saw in each other (perhaps there's my answer). Whishaw's Keats was pretty and pale and weak, and Cornish's Fanny was pretty and pushy and whiny. I don't like to stop a movie before I finish it, but I was sorely tempted to shut it off and end my misery. The movie seemed like a teenage girl’s fantasy of what love and romance is, epitomized in the film in one scene with Fanny and a room full of butterflies that symbolize her relationship, blah, blah, blah. All I kept thinking of during the scene was the welfare of those poor cooped-up butterflies. As I said, the cinematography was lovely and that’s was held me until the end. After the movie was over, I went online and looked again at the reviews and found them overwhelmingly positive. Maybe I was just in the wrong mood when I watched it, but even a few days later, as you can probably tell from this post, I can’t think of the movie objectively. It filled me with emotions, certainly—disbelief, annoyance, and impatience for it to be over.