Disney and the Movies

This holiday season there are not one but two animated Disney movies in the theaters. I don't really write many movie reviews here because I don't go see that many movies, but since I saw both The Princess and the Frog and A Christmas Carol in 3D, I figured I'd share my take on both of them.

I know there's a lot of controversy surrounding it, but I loved The Princess and the Frog. Not only is it the first Disney movie with a black princess, but it's the first hand-animated Disney princess movie in 11 years. Anika Noni Rose, the actress who plays Princess Tiana, is wonderful. Not only is she the first actress to do both the speaking and singing voices of a Disney princess, but she's a Tony Award-winner which means she started out on Broadway. (Woohoo!) Tiana is a very strong female character who knows that she can't get what she wants just by wishing on a star, but that a lot of hard work is involved in fulfilling your dreams. The movie also has a great score, inspired by the 1920s and New Orleans jazz. There was a lot of criticism that Tiana spends too much screen time as a frog, but that allowed there to be a good amount of time spent both in the city of New Orleans (as a human) and in the surrounding Bayou swamps (as a frog). The one thing that bothered me was Tiana's frog body. She had a slender curvy female silhouette, as a frog. I mean, come on! But once I got used to that, I enjoyed the movie a lot. And the villain is a voodoo master - how cool is that?! I want to go see it again in theaters, but since I refuse to pay $12.50 a second time I'll probably go see a morning show for $6.





A Christmas Carol also got mixed reviews. My expectations weren't that high, but I was blown away by the animation. We saw it in 3D and it was well worth it. The animation was astounding. The detail was incredible. The people looked, walked, talked, moved like real people. You could see the hairs on the tip of Scrooge's nose. The retelling of the story was average and a lot of the script seemed like it was written just so that it could be animated with special effects, but those effects were so outstanding that it didn't matter. I loved the aerial shots of Victorian London. The movie was also a darker interpretation than some others I've seen - it was scary at a few points, which made it a lot more exciting than I was expecting. If for nothing other than the animation, you must see this!



Jim Carrey does the voice of Scrooge and all the ghosts. I thought it was amazing that Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present looked so different, but both looked so much like Jim Carrey. Can you tell from this picture?

Espresso Cookies and More NYC Holiday Fun

Last night I baked these Espresso Crinkle cookies. It was a new recipe so I wasn't sure how the cookies would turn out, but I think the pictures speak for themselves. They were amazing. And dairy-free, too!




Today when we left the apartment, we came across this little red-eyed snowman chillin' on the street. (Okay, pun intended.) Here he is, pictured with my mom's snowboot for scale:


I went uptown in the afternoon to visit the Museum of Natural History with Lael. There are two big evergreen dinosaurs holding wreaths at the entrance. They're both covered in lights, although you can't tell in the sunlight.


This was the first year that I've seen the museum's origami tree, which has a different theme each year. This year's theme is Origami, A to Z and features animals arranged by letters of the alphabet. The stars at the top of the tree were part of a mobile that slowly rotated.

Lots of letters, lots of animals

G is for gorilla and giraffe!

View of West 76th Street from Lael's apartment

Snow Day

Yesterday I took lots of pictures of New York in the snow. Snow in New York doesn't stay beautiful for long, but when it's new, it's stunning.

Lower East Side

Upper East Side

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Polar bears in the park

The park was packed with tons of kids sledding and building snowmen.

A man skiing across the Great Lawn

Belvedere Castle

And then my camera died. But my cell phone came to the rescue with decent, albeit low-resolution, pictures:

Upper West Side

Columbus Circle

This snowman was part of a trio, and he even had sunglasses on.

The line for horse and carriage rides was about a block long!

Central Park pond by 5th Avenue

You'll also notice that I changed the picture behind the title page. I've changed it around a few times recently but I think I'll stick with this one until winter's over. Happy Solstice - from now on the days will be getting longer again!

Chocolate Panettone

I made panettone in our bread machine today, and it unintentionally turned into chocolate panettone. We couldn't find candied fruit anywhere, so we decided to use chopped almonds and mini chocolate chips instead. But the chocolate chips melted, and so the bread itself became chocolate-y! It looks like whole wheat because of the dark color, but it's really just the chocolate. It has a very subtle chocolate taste, and is more bread-like than most panettone, which is cake-y, but it's delicious!







Here's the recipe, if you happen to have a bread machine:
http://www.recipezaar.com/Steves-Panettone-for-Bread-Machine-106369

Latkes for Hanukkah

Last night my housemates and I made latkes for dinner - scroll down for the recipe!

Mixture of grated potatoes, onions flour, beaten eggs, salt, pepper, and baking powder

Frying the latkes and grilling chicken

Yum.

Salad, chicken, latkes, applesauce, and sour cream!

Just figured I'd throw in a picture of our hearth with the rocking chair, since it was really Chrismukkah that we celebrated. Note my Metropolitan Museum of Art advent calendar!

Here's the recipe we used for the latkes:

4 large russet potatoes (about 1 pound each)
1 large onion
3 eggs
1/2 cup matzo meal or 1/4 cup flour
2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp Baking Powder (mix in with the four)

Peel the potatoes and grate them either by hand or in a food processor. Squeeze the grated potatoes by handfuls to get rid of the excess starchy water or drain in a colinder. Place the potatoes in a bowl. Peel and grate the onion and beat the eggs lightly. Add the grated onion, beaten eggs, flour, baking powder, salt and pepper, and mix well. Heat about 1/4 cup oil in pan. Fry!

Hanukkah

Happy first night of Hanukkah!

Vanderbilt Mansion

The view outside my bedroom window the morning after it snowed

On Sunday, my parents and I visited the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park. It's a gilded age mansion belonging to Frederick and Louise Vanderbilt, of the New York Vanderbilts. It's a huge estate and the grounds alone are astounding, although we didn't walk around much because it was cold. We couldn't take pictures inside the house, which was decorated for Christmas, but I took some photos outside.

The inside of the visitors' center, which was the house the Vanderbilts stayed in while the mansion was being constructed, and later used as a bachelor pad for male visitors (female visitors stayed overnight in the main house).

Chandelier in the visitors' center

The view of the Hudson

Hudson River overlook - the Vanderbilts had a mile of riverfront property out of their 600+ total acres.