"Every time Tony Blair says 'we,' I feel like Gary Glitter has suggested me as a character witness. Leave me out of it!"

--Graham Linehan, Twitter, 29 January 2010

After being sick on-and-off (which I'm convinced is a direct result of my getting used to riding a bike in the winter, as I don't remember it happening to such a degree last year) for much of early March, I was actually able to cook something at home on Monday. I always thought it an old wives' tale that professional (or at least working) cooks rarely cooked at home because they were so tired of handling food all the time. There's some truth to that, I now believe, but in my case I think there's also the time issue. When I worked at Cafe du Jour, I never worked evenings or weekends, and those times were a lot more convenient for me to really kick it in the kitchen. Now, I work five evenings a week, two of them almost always on weekends, and so the equation has changed. Hopefully I'll be able to keep this recent momentum going.

Mackerel made its debut in my kitchen on Monday, something I've been anticipating for a while. Apparently mackerel seems to have a mixed reputation (at least according to Mark Bittman) as its strong, fishy flavor and quick spoliage rate puts people off. I loved it. It looks good, the backflap cuts easy (as long as you don't mind chunks instead of slabs), even with my excuse for a serrated knife (I really need to get a decent one) and the finished flavor remains rich, robust, and above all fishy. Often cookbooks will warn against a fishy taste or smell, as that generally means that the fish has gone off to some extent, but I like the idea of your meal underlining the origin of your main dish, and mackerel preserves that authenticity even after you've cooked it. I had a Portuguese Malay recipe planned that I may still try eventually, but I'd never had mackerel before, and I figured I should get the taste down and figure out whether I'd like it again. So I made a kind of sauteed mackerel hash salad.

As mentioned before, cutting back flaps off the mackerel fillets (about a pound and a half) with my substandard knife yielded fish chunks instead of neat fish steaks, but all was good as I planned to saute it all anyway; I could get a comparison of the different tastes of a large and small piece. I heated up the skillet, dumped the fish in there, then added a little olive oil and a couple of cloves of crushed garlic (I'd probably try oil first next time, but I got carried away with the improvisatory nature of the "recipe"). I started cooking it, stirring all the while, and adding a little lemon juice and apple cider vinegar for good measure (most of the recipes I've read for mackerel recommend adding the latter, at least, to counter the intense flavor of the actual fish; as I figured--rightly--that I'd like the flavor anyway, that wasn't much of an issue). Saute's probably my favorite cooking method, simply because you have such a close connection to the actual cooking, and can see it happen all the while. The fish, already a pale pink, whitened and then browned in various places, and one of my favorite parts of the process was carving away the razor-thin strips of fried fish and juices that collected on the outside of the skillet, then pulling them back and mixing them with the fish. After about ten or fifteen minutes (I wasn't keeping track as you could tell from the skillet) I tried some of the fish and it was definitely done. It tasted fantastic--like real fish, but with none of the stigma that fishiness usually carries. It almost had a hint of rubber, but in a good way, if that makes any sense; it was definitely great change from the other kinds of fish I've done in the kitchen over the years (salmon, cod, tuna, and smelt). I dumped the fish onto a plate, and then mixed it with raw spinach (which, on reflection, I should have wilted or something as it would have been a more interesting taste), a diced roma tomato, and a little Parmigiano, adding more apple cider vinegar and some whole grain mustard for dressing. The result was a rich combination of flavors I enjoy, although the clash was occasionally a little more interesting than savory. I had it with a couple of bottles of Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold, and it made for a wonderful day off. I can easily see this becoming a personal household favorite of mine, but I'm much more enthusiastic about learning how to do more mackerel recipes.

Wizards of the Lost Kingdom (1985): It's awful, but pleasantly so, therefore I don't hold its wretchedness against it. I really don't know where to start; fortunately, it's all on YouTube. The warier can get a load of the trailer, I suppose. There's no other way to review this than to repeat my stream-of-consciousness comments from the BHF Forum... Wow. James Horner's score is frankly ripping off his stuff for the Star Trek movies. I love the half-assed fertility dance the maidens seem to be doing at the beginning. Not sure whether the enchanted gargoyle is creepy or hilarious. Schuyler Colfax was Ulysses S. Grant's first vice-president. I never knew he was a gigantic, grunting plush toy (or "creepy whatchamacallit" as onetime 70s character actor--e.g. The Great Waldo Pepper--Bo Svenson calls him). The gnomes fall in the same category as the gargoyle. The nymph/siren thing made me think I was watching some long-lost giallo. Now it's like a mix of The Devil's Men with The NeverEnding Story. "Princess Aura"--wonder where that came from? Some of this dialogue could go up against Hellraiser II. "I bid you, Clyde, raise up these warrior spirits." Eh??? Colfax is doing his job--I'm laughing my ass off every time he "says" something. No. No no no no no. Not more gnomes. I'm tired of this PC bullshit. They want our jobs and our women. Period. I could swear the blacksmith played one of the poachers ("Huzza!") in the MST3K classic Pod People. The Suicide Cavern? What is this, the novel of You Only Live Twice? I hate to say it, but Bo Svenson's way too good for this movie. "Whadur ya doin? You need training to use that sword"--that was actually pretty funny. I think we just had partial nudity. The music appears to be quoting Benjamin Britten. Svenson's literally Swedish-American accent serves the film surprisingly well. Mermaids and rainbows. This movie's got it all. Blatant Prokofiev ripoff from Alexander Nevsky. The ripoffs go both ways: Quest of the Delta Knights owes this thing so much. I love Svenson's OTT wink and the fact that everybody starts chasing him. To quote Joel Hodgson on Manos: The Hands of Fate: "Man, I wonder what this cast party was like." "Rule well, Simon. You'll be a good king. Now follow my instructions like a puppy." According to the YouTube info, the sequel "stars a (very drunk) David Carradine" along with Sid Haig and what appear to be lower-rent versions of Corey Feldman and Billy Zane. I am personally richer for my experience.

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2004): This celebrated homage to 50s B-movies made quite a splash on its release several years back, and I'd been meaning to see it ever since. Scientist Paul (Larry Blamire) plans to spend an idyllic weekend out at the Taylors' cabin with his lovely wife Betty (Fay Masterson), but is interrupted by the arrival of an errant meteorite loaded with "atmospherium," the most powerful element known to "man." Paul's delighted by the opportunities the atmopsherium offers him to "do science," but a number of interlopers threaten Paul and Betty's happiness. Power-hungry scientist Dr. Roger Fleming (Brian Howe) needs the atmospherium to awaken the "Lost Skeleton of Cadavra" and gain power over the Earth, while stranded aliens Kro-Bar (Andrew Parks) and Lattis (Susan McConnell) need it to power their spaceship and recover their missing mutant. Spicing things up is Fleming's servant Animala (Jennifer Blaire), a half-human, half-animal temptress created from four different forest animals who takes quite a shine to Paul. For someone who still runs classic Mystery Science Theater moments through his head near-daily, Cadavra's appeal would seem like a no-brainer, but it takes a while to really get going. Some of the gags, like the awkward silences or the too-long laughter, if they were ever funny, have since been befouled by the atrocious Family Guy. Fortunately, once all the pieces come together, the film's affectionately shabby charm becomes apparent, even if the film's a little long (there was a sketch on the 90s comedy show Exit 57, featuring Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris, that did pretty much the same thing in about five minutes*). Bonus points for filming in scenic Bronson Canyon, where so many of these pictures (e.g. Robot Monster, Teenage Caveman, and Eegah!) got their distinctive look.

The Guild (2007-09): Not only do I not play World of Warcraft, I used to generate a certain amount of self-amusement poking gentle fun at those who did: "I'm sorry, but your HMO has been destroyed in a goblin attack." My limited access to the Internet for most of its existence would have prevented any addiction, as would my surprisingly lukewarm attachment to roleplaying games as a kid (I was more in love with the mechanics of character generation and world creation than the actual game, per se, and finding others to play was problematic--I think I only played two or three actual games with other people in my entire life).  It was probably just as well, as I noticed a certain amount of standoffishness when I told my Warcraft-playing co-worker about it; I thought he assumed that they would be making fun of his lifestyle, although this may be an automatic reaction. As a result, The Guild's setup wasn't entirely wasted on me, and in any event the deservedly popular web series becomes about so much (all right, slightly) more than the game itself. The Guild was the brainchild of Felicia Day, who played Penny in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and was one of the apprentice Slayers in the last season of Buffy. Ms. Day is an understandable hit among the online community, and there were moments when it would have been so much simpler for me to just veg out in front of the screen and drool the word "pretty" out as if I had just been put back together from the parts of corpses. Thankfully, this didn't happen (for the most part), and she's put together an extremely entertaining little phenomenon that's won several awards (YouTube, SXSW, the "Streamies") and has become (from what I can tell) something of a symbol of the kind of new media rightfully changing some of the rules of the American cultural landscape (strictly true, even if it sounds a little pompous). Inspired by Day's own video game addiction, The Guild follows a "guild" of online players (the specifics of Warcraft were discarded to avoid copyright complications, and the game comes across as a somewhat more generic Dungeons and Dragons-inspired variety) and the misadventures and obstacles they face in the game and (more often) in real life. Day plays a cleric named Codex, member of the "Knights of Good," led by Vork (Jeff Lewis) a fighter and in real life a taciturn, dronish chap who leads the Knights of Good, trying (and failing) to keep real-life resentments and complications from bubbling over and affecting the guild. Warlock Zaboo (Sandeep Parikh), thief Bladezz (Vincent Caso), mage Clara (Robin Thorsen) and ranger Tinkerballa (Amy Okuda) round out the gang--respectively a hapless mama's boy, a sleazy high schooler, a ditzy mother of three, and a savagely ruthless pre-med student. They all have real names that are mentioned occasionally throughout the show, but are usually referred to by their screen names when they're not online. All find themselves faced with an avalanche of batshittery that ensues when Zaboo starts stalking Codex and Bladezz is banned from the game for twenty-four hours for making an ass of himself. The plot gets deliciously convoluted over the three seasons (usually 10-12 episodes of around 5-8 minutes each), ending in the guild's conflict with the "Axis of Anarchy" (led by a hilarious Wil Wheaton as an Ayn Rand-quoting douchebag in a kilt) and Codex's determination to gain self-confidence in the game and in life. I first learned about The Guild on the extras to Dr. Horrible, and it works brilliantly as a web series. It doesn't last too long, you can watch whenever you want, and the length of the episodes makes it easy to dip in and out (not that I did--it's pretty easy to just watch each season in one sitting). This may seem old hat to many, but it's still something of a new thing for me, and the medium is perfect for what Day and company have done. The characters are a little broadly drawn, to be sure, and there's not a whole lot of room for development. As a result, the dialogue and situations become a little unrealistic even for the apparent parameters of the show, but the writing is almost always fresh and funny, sometimes in quite unexpected ways, and the actors' comic timing is outstanding (it didn't surprise me to learn that Parikh and Lewis are veterans of the L.A. improv scene). Codex is the de facto main character, and each episode starts with her making an entry on her vlog, but we learn enough about the others to appreciate the struggles they have to go through to live even vaguely normal lives. My favorite character, arguably, isn't even one of the guild but Bladezz' smartass younger sister Dena, who frequently violates the sanctity of the "Bladezz Pad" (his mom's basement). Describing the plot already looks weird enough on Wikipedia, so I'm not going to try and repeat the labor. Season 1 is up on YouTube, as is Season 2, and Season 3's at the official site. Day also put together this hilarious video which pretty much has the show down pat.

*"She's as brilliant as she is beautiful!!!"--one of Colbert's lines.