Author Archives: Sandi LoConti

Les Mis

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We have long ago forgone the extravagant gifts at Christmas for time together.  We realize the significance of time more than most so my sister’s gift to me for Christmas was two hours and thirty eight minutes of Les Miserables, the movie.  Yeah, us and all the Jews.  They, who relish the movies on Christmas Day, were none too happy that we were invading their bastion of tradition in droves.  To the point of sold out showings, everywhere.

My sister went early to get the tickets.  She knows I am a fan.  Don’t think the folly of the hundreds spent on seeing this show four times on Broadway is lost on me.  I don’t care.  Each time I saw it I was moved to tears and brought to my feet as if it was the first time.  So expectations were high, well not so much as the trailer and the coming attractions and commercials brought goose bumps and welling in advance.

I could not have had a better seat, last row, and last seat all the way to the right of the screen.  No one in front of me and several fans in the same row.  Make no mistake this is a movie for fans.  The reviews have been mixed but the fans turned out in record numbers for an opening showing…on Christmas Day.

Tom Hooper’s direction is fabulous, his innovation in recording the singing live while filming is perfect even if all the notes aren’t, yes Russell we’re talking to you but who the hell would expect Javert to be able to sing anyway.  I love Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean, and Ann Hathaway’s one take wonder of “I Dreamed a Dream” started everyone down the path of smeared mascara and sniffing.  I didn’t risk tissues for this movie but had a trusty faded bandana to weep and snivel into, so clever am I.

Yes, that was Colm Wilkinson as the priest who saves Jean Valjean from going back to prison.  He is my all-time favorite Jean Valjean, ever. And I did see him (twice) on Broadway, so the nuance of him setting Jean Valjean on the path of righteousness was a brilliant cameo pick in my mind.  Too much, have I said who cares enough yet?

I thought the casting was perfect, each bringing their acting/singing abilities with them toward a musical as much acted as sung.  I love the firsts, the technology, the live singing, and the true to the original feel of a movie make of a beloved Broadway show.

To say I was a mess at the end of this movie is an understatement.  My bandana could be wrung out. Whatever the critics say the hell with them.  The audience applauded the finale, and I must say I didn’t know how Tom was going to get Hugh into the final number from…well you know, but he did.  I loved this movie, I loved sitting in a dark theater knowing my sister was right next to me, keeping an eye on me as I brushed the tears away.  I will own this movie and watch it over and over finding something new to love each time including the memory of a Christmas spent with my sister.

 

 

 

Fall on Your Knees

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When I hear that line from the Christmas carol Holy Night it sticks in my throat every time.  I cannot sing that line for the emotion it brings no matter what language I hear it in it still overwhelms me.

So I’ll let Andrea Bocelli sing it for you and we can be a mess together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9egij7D5seI

Merry Christmas I wish you all the blessings of the season and even more in the New Year..

You Can Wish Me

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I think of you every time I wish someone Merry Christmas he said. Thanks I said but I knew where this was going.  He had launched a campaign to wish everyone a Merry Christmas instead of letting the words Happy Holidays pass his lips. This from a faithful church going had lifesaving open heart surgery, second chance at life man who I think of as one of the nicest human beings I know…and who still owes me a glass of red and a co-written blog post.

He thinks of me because I’m ok with Happy Holidays, you can wish me Happy Holidays and I appreciate that you wish me well.  I’m no longer under the illusion that everyone celebrates Christmas.  I don’t presume to know everyone’s faith or what they believe in if they believe in anything.  I don’t push my faith on others and I don’t want them to push their faith on me.  Fact is I thought my faith was faltering for a long time but it wasn’t faith I was questioning it was religion and its rigidity and exclusivity and non-inclusiveness that was in question.  As I always say, “God ain’t mad at me, I’m doing good work”.

I am blessed to know and love many different kinds of people these days.  I’m no longer cocooned in a world of “my people” the way I was when I was growing up.  Things have changed, for the better in my opinion, when I can learn from different faiths and ethnicities and respect and love them just the same as if they were “going about with Merry Christmas on their lips”.

I love this season.  I didn’t always but my world has changed drastically and continues to change as I move through it with altered vision and perspective.  The more I look around the more I see the similarities and less I see the differences.  So if saying Happy Holidays is offensive to you I suggest you look at your valued collection of friends and colleagues and see if they might appreciate hearing that instead of Merry Christmas.  If Happy Holidays screams liberalism to you then perhaps you might want to step out of the political ring and into the town you live in where we help each other and say hello with full hearts every day.

Not acknowledging how diverse our towns, states and country has become is limiting yourself to the “old ways” that were none too happy for our ancestors who came from somewhere else and made a difference in our lives. Surely we’ve come farther than that.  Happy Holidays is a celebratory cry out for and from those who have embraced this country with their own traditions and love of freedom.

Open that now perfect heart my friend and see that you are surrounded by people who are living and loving this country and this season as much as you think you do.

Mincemeat Pies

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At this very moment I am diving into a tiny mincemeat piece of deliciousness made with love by my friend Jan Riley.  It would have been more than enough to enjoy lunch with her and David yesterday at our usual spot but in she came with this Christmas goodie straight out of her past and mine.

My father loved mincemeat pies and my mother could make a pretty good one albeit with None Such Mincemeat filling.  It was a bit foreign to the Italian side of things at our house but my father, or should I say his parents, being Scottish was quite familiar with the savory/sweet deliciousness.  He pretty much had the entire pie to himself until we eventually caught on.

The recipe for these little tarts comes straight out of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management.  This indispensable handbook of many a newly married woman was originally published back in 1861.  Jan and I have had, and continue to have, quite the laugh about this book whenever we mention it.

Mrs. Beeton from the preface:  I must frankly own, that if I had known, beforehand, that this book would have cost me the labour which it has, I should never have been courageous enough to commence it. What moved me, in the first instance, to attempt a work like this, was the discomfort and suffering which I had seen brought upon men and women by household mismanagement. I have always thought that there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife’s badly-cooked dinners and untidy ways. Men are now so well served out of doors,—at their clubs, well-ordered taverns, and dining-houses, that in order to compete with the attractions of these places, a mistress must be thoroughly acquainted with the theory and practice of cookery, as well as be perfectly conversant with all the other arts of making and keeping a comfortable home.

Yeah.  Right.  That said it is still indispensable today and while the domestic side of running a home has changed dramatically the recipes are as contemporary as they’ve always been.  And Jan and her legacy would be lost without them.  This little taste of what my grandparents must have enjoyed back in Scotland and this little moment of “coffee and..” with my father is making an otherwise cold, windy and grey day quite a bit brighter. The real gift, however, is the memory of my father and his heritage and the warmth my dear friend has provided.  Merry Christmas Jan.

So laugh if you must, from my internet copy (yes Mrs. Beeton has a website) of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, Chapter 27, the recipe for “Excellent Mincemeat” and the delicious little pies.  I’ll need Jan to translate a few things…

EXCELLENT MINCEMEAT.1310. INGREDIENTS – 3 large lemons, 3 large apples, 1 lb. of stoned raisins, 1 lb. of currants, 1 lb. of suet, 2 lbs. of moist sugar, 1 oz. of sliced candied citron, 1 oz. of sliced candied orange-peel, and the same quantity of lemon-peel, 1 teacupful of brandy, 2 tablespoonfuls of orange marmalade.

Mode.—Grate the rinds of the lemons; squeeze out the juice, strain it, and boil the remainder of the lemons until tender enough to pulp or chop very finely. Then add to this pulp the apples, which should be baked, and their skins and cores removed; put in the remaining ingredients one by one, and, as they are added, mix everything very thoroughly together. Put the mincemeat into a stone jar with a closely-fitting lid, and in a fortnight it will be ready for use.

Seasonable.—This should be made the first or second week in December.

MINCE PIES.

1311. INGREDIENTS – Good puff-paste No. 1205, mincemeat No. 1309.

Mode.—Make some good puff-paste by recipe No. 1205; roll it out to the thickness of about 1/4 inch, and line some good-sized pattypans with it; fill them with mincemeat, cover with the paste, and cut it off all round close to the edge of the tin. Put the pies into a brisk oven, to draw the paste up, and bake for 25 minutes, or longer, should the pies be very large; brush them over with the white of an egg, beaten with the blade of a knife to a stiff froth; sprinkle over pounded sugar, and put them into the oven for a minute or two, to dry the egg; dish the pies on a white d’oyley, and serve hot. They may be merely sprinkled with pounded sugar instead of being glazed, when that mode is preferred. To re-warm them, put the pies on the pattypans, and let them remain in the oven for 10 minutes or 1/4 hour, and they will be almost as good as if freshly made.

Time.—25 to 30 minutes; 10 minutes to re-warm them.

Average cost, 4d. each.

Sufficient—1/2 lb. of paste for 4 pies. Seasonable at Christmas time.