Holiday feasting ... and films!

Two timely thoughts heading into Thanksgiving week:

I love this article from today's Seattle Times about a local cookbook author whose book has blown up in Japan. Bethany Jean Clement recounts how Kathleen Flinn's book, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, was published in Japan with the hilarious title The Magic Cooking Classroom that Changes Bad Girls' Lives. As Flinn told Clement:

My editor and translator’s take is that in Japanese culture, women are expected to be able to do it all — have a career, be an immaculate housekeeper, a fabulous mother, a diligent daughter and an amazing individual with extensive hobbies, and a talented cook,” Flinn says. Dryly, she observes, “This may sound familiar to American women.”

I am not much of a cook, but this story is funny--and it makes me think even I might want to take a knife-handling class at Tom Douglas' Hot Stove Society. (Flinn has another book titled The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry.) The article also has five tips for fearless holiday cooking, so if you are in charge of the holiday feast and feel some trepidation, you'll feel better after reading it.


Speaking of the holidays, the big year-end movie releases are coming out. Along with a few hundred thousand other folks, Tom and I recently signed up for Movie Pass, an app and accompanying debit card which lets you watch up to one movie a day for about $10 a month. (At Wired.com, Brian Barrett calls it "a monthly cinematic smorgasbord for the price of a fancy sandwich.") Movie Pass used to be $50 a month, which was too steep even for relatively frequent moviegoers--but now they're even offering a $90/year version if you pay up front. It seems like an unsustainable business model, but word is Movie Pass is goosing high-margin concession sales for theaters. It's also making movie-going much more palatable to Millennials who'd otherwise be watching Netflix, and it's collecting presumably valuable data on our movie-watching habits.

Of course, terms and conditions apply, and there have been glitches. Movie Pass works at most theaters, but not all of them, and not for 3-D nor IMAX showings. Last night, reportedly because a ton of users all wanted to see Justice League, the app crashed nationwide for several hours. Not a good thing on a Saturday night! (We wound up seeing Marshall at the Crest Theater, one of the only local theaters not taking Movie Pass, but one we want to see stay open with its indie-film tilt and bargain prices.)

But other than that problem last night, Movie Pass has worked like a charm for us so far, and we're happily gorging on movies. Gobble gobble. Have a good Thanksgiving!