Man or Muppet?

I think I am a big kid at heart, especially when it comes to the movies that I watch. Every animation that comes out, I have to watch! It's like I never grew out of the phase, and luckily Grant is exactly the same. Only, while I grew up watching Kideo and Disney movies, Grant grew up five years earlier with the Muppets.

It's not that I didn't grow up knowing about the Muppets. I knew of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy and I'm pretty sure that I watched movies like The Muppets in Space and Muppet Treasure Island, but I was always one who was more into watching Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast hundreds of times over rather than watching live action. But, dating Grant, it was slightly hard to avoid the Muppet mania. It just pops up every now and then, like when I was introduced to the Manamana song, which got stuck in my head for months on end and is likely to get stuck there again now that I have even mentioned it. Or, when Grant rediscovered The Muppet Christmas Carol and we watched that a couple of times.

So it should come as no surprise then, that we have been in Muppet mania over the last few months, ever since we heard about the Muppet movie. Even I couldn't resist the hype. The advertising campaign was amazing, with them running ads for the movie based on trailers for various other movies. Confused? Try watching the trailer entitled The Pig With The Froggy Tattoo or Being Green. You'll see what I'm talking about. Oh, and did I mention that the movie stars How I Met Your Mother actor Jason Segel and Enchanted actress Amy Adams? What about special guest appearances from Jack Black, Neil Patrick Harris and Jim Parsons (Sheldon from Big Bang Theory)? Mix that with the rave reviews that it was getting and Grant and I were practically jumping off our seats dying to see the movie.

We eventually managed to get a copy of it, and I suppose the real question is going to be, "Were we disappointed?" The answer is a resounding NO! Let me make something clear right now - the movie is a kid's movie. But it is a kid's movie that speaks to an older generation of kids. It is a musical straight from the 70's with the choreography and goofy moments that you have come to expect from a typical Muppets movie. And that is what it is - a typical Muppets movie in typical Muppets fashion, presented to today's children. Which they should be thrilled about! I don't know if they are going to be, but they should be.

The humour was great with moments of laughing out loud and moments of cringing, but not in the dodgy way that most comedies lead to these days. The songs themselves were hilarious and wonderfully done. The storyline is a little weak, but entertaining nonetheless. Basically it is about a guy named Gary and his girlfriend, Mary, who decide to take a trip to LA and bring Gary's little brother, Walter, along. Walter feels like he never fits in, which is not surprising considering that he is a muppet without actually realising it. Anyway, he loves the Muppets and they decide to visit the old Muppet theatre in LA only to find out that it is derelict and about to be torn down by an oil-digging Texan tycoon. So, of course, they go off and try to get the Muppets back together to save the theatre.

Who would I recommend this movie to? Anyone who loved the Muppets as a kid and is ready to see them with a slight (very slight) modern twist but with an old school feel. Also, anyone who is in the mood for a good clean laugh and anyone who has kids. Not Rudi. He apparently hated it. *Shrug* Anyway! 5/5 from me!

Apples for Jam

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about how I had started getting into cooking and all the things that I wanted to try. Well, today I thought that I would write a post about a cookbook that I recently acquired.

I remember it well, the first time that I picked up Apples for Jam. It was the first time that my mother and I were eating out at Cafe Delicieux - a cafe that had opened up the road from our house. I sat down on a grey pouffe in amongst the delicate paper pattern decorations (depicting gardens filled with fauna and flora) and chandeliers. This was not somewhere to come for your everyday cuppa Joe. This was a treat in itself. We opened the menus and scanned the delicious sounding options before setting on some drinks and a sandwich to share. While we waited for our meal, Mom picked up a magazine and I, not really in the mood for a magazine, picked up the first book that appealed to me. I think it was the cover that perked my interest, the bright red shoes on little feet, the delicately detailed embossment on the cover that could only be seen when you looked at it out of the corner of your eye. I picked it up and opened to the introduction:

This is food for families, for young people, for old people, for children, for the child in all... for life.

The line captured me. From that moment I was hooked. I wanted to page through the recipes and memories at a frantic pace, try to take it all in and remember everything word for word, but before I knew it, our food had arrived and I was not even halfway into the Red section. I reluctantly put the book down, but remembered the name so that I could look it up the next time I was in Exclusive Books. Apples for Jam became my personal motto. Apples for Jam, I repeated to myself over and over again. It became my aim, my philosophy, my ideal. If there was one cookbook that I was going to buy, I said to myself, Apples for Jam would be it. And then I entered Exclusive Books and, amazingly, came across the book almost immediately. It stood out from the rest. It called to me. I gingerly stroked the spine and carefully removed it from it's shelf. And then put it straight back after a momentary glance at the price. There was no way that I could afford to pay R500 for a cookbook, especially since I didn't do all that much cooking.

Over the next few years, I searched for Apples for Jam in every book shop I went into. I found sales on other Tessa Kiros books (Tessa Kiros, of course, being the woman responsible for my addiction), but never Apples for Jam. Years passed and I could never justify buying the book for myself. And then, before I left Cape Town to come to Grahamstown (after my year in Korea), I got given a gift voucher for Exclusive Books. It was a particularly generous voucher, a birthday present from my grandparents, and within moments I had decided what I would spend it on. It wouldn't cover the whole book, no. But I was prepared to put in the difference and made my way to Exclusive, straight to the cooking aisle, and there it was, where it had always been, still calling me and drawing me towards it. I took it to the counter and, after a bit of rude service from the sales assistant that fortunately didn't manage to deter me from my purchase, I left with the book in hand.

It was still a good few hours of shopping, window shopping and driving before I could finally be alone with the book. I gingerly opened the cover once more and, skipping the introduction this time, wanting to jump straight in, started devouring the pages that the book had to offer. The book itself is divided into colours rather than food types - Red, Orange, Yellow, Pink, Green, Gold, White, Brown, Monochrome, Stripes and Multicolour - to symbolise the colour that the food will turn out to be. In Red, for example, you will find a number of recipes that use a large amount of tomato or berries; in Orange you will find foods that use pumpkins, butternuts, oranges, apricots and numerous other orange ingredients; while in brown you will find a number of baking bits and pieces - cakes, breads, etc. Though it does make it a little difficult to find specific recipes if you know what it is that you are looking for, I thought that it added a childlike, sweet quality to the book. At the start of each chapter you will find a memory attached to that colour, and Kiros weaves stories at the start of each individual recipe, turning it into more than just a cookbook, but a small window into her own world.

I have not yet endeavoured to cook any of the recipes that are hidden in the book. I am saving that for a special occasion or for a very specific craving. But I completely intend to indulge in almost every recipe in the book, as I haven't found a single one that doesn't make my mouth start to water - from Chocolate and Cranberry Biscuits, to Wholemeal Apricot and Apple Pie, to Angel Hair Pasta with Zucchini, Mint and Feta and beyond. I can hardly hold myself back!

My question for you today is this: What one book have you been eyeing for ages?