Old Books, a New "Naked Gun," and Two Mild Rants
Happy Tuesday!
As you may recall, Heather recently went to Florida to help her Mom with a decluttering project, and she came home with some items to help me with a cluttering project: five vintage cookbooks for my collection. I thought it might be fun to share them with you, and ask Broads Nation which I ought to examine in greater detail next.
First up, Come for Cocktails, Stay for Supper, by Marian Burros and Lois Levine:
I was particularly entertained by the blurb on the back from The New York Times Book Review, noting this was aimed at the “less affluent and sophisticated hostess,” which seems like a burn in a vacuum and really seems snotty when you know that Marian Burros worked for the NYT for YEARS and, in fact, wrote one of the cooking section’s most popular and arguably most famous recipes. She also has an Emmy! She and Levine wrote a bunch of cookbooks together — that plum torte originated with Lois! — and frankly, yes, I’d be happy to stay for supper. Especially since, judging from some of the cocktail recipes, I am probably too drunk to drive home. Before you vote, you should definitely know that this cook contains recipes for something called “Zippy Avocado,” and something called “Snappy Cheese Apple.”
Speaking of drinks, next, we have The Smirnoff Brunch Book:
It has a completely unhinged back blurb:
It’s just brunch, dude! Whatever makes you feel better about your Bloody Marys, though — who am I to judge? Mr. Hayakawa also contributed a very flowery introduction and may have in fact secretly written the entire book for the Smirnoff people, presumably for a good rate, and also possibly while drunk on Smirnoff. I’m not sure when he would have had time to do this, as he was at the time president of San Francisco State. He was also Senator from 1977-1983, making him the first American politician to appear in this particular Drinks With Broads feature in association with a cookbook published by a vodka conglomerate. Sorry for calling you “dude,” Senator. Speaking of the democratic process, it is crucial you voters know that this book suggests you mix Smirnoff and Guinness at your fondue party, at which you should also serve something called “Rum Tum Tiddy,” which weirdly does not contain rum.
Our next option has my favorite title:
Soupçon: Seasonal Samplings from the Junior League of Chicago, who missed an excellent opportunity to make this book totally soup focused. Adorably, the cookbook is color-coded:
Honestly, I suspect this collection is low-key good. It has excellent Amazon reviews, including one from Donna, who had to let everyone know that she purchased a copy for her “second home,” like, CONGRATS, DONNA, we don’t all have a beach house, you’re very fortunate!! I have to confess that when I opened it at random, I found a recipe called “MUSKY DELIGHT.”
Up next is the Good Housekeeping Cookbook, which is surely a companion to my Good Housekeeping Guide to Successful Homemaking.
I admit to having a soft spot for this one, as it has a section called “The Best of Susan,” which my mother would have appreciated, given that her name was Susan. I don’t know if my Mom would have enjoyed the conceit that “Susan” is Good Housekeeping’s fictional 19 year-old-reader who doesn’t have any idea what she’s doing, however.
I have a lot more to say about this cookbook but I’m going to save it and just show you this photo, inexplicably placed in the “Fish” section:
I feel sorry for Robert Carrier’s 1963 Great Dishes of the World for having to follow that.
Look how unamused this man is.
(Note: This is not Robert Carrier. But whoever this chef is, he found all those jokes you just made about the “Roast-Beef [sic] Hearty Party Salad” unbearably juvenile.) This book, per its front pages, “has been developed from Robert Carrier’s ‘Great Dishes of the World’ that has appeared in the Colour Magazine of The Sunday Times” and it is British, although all the recipes use American measurements and oven temperatures. It is EXTREMELY PRETENTIOUS, has beautiful end papers, and is probably quite legit — to the point that I am considering using it sincerely and not just to be weird. Fun fact: Carrier was a celebrity chef in his heyday, probably a spy during World War II — for the Allies — and his obit is extremely compelling. His book has a section called “Great Sauces.” It was a huge bestseller.
I look forward to your decision.
— Jessica
Why Are You Like This???
God dammit, pepperoni pizza crisps.
I don’t like pepperoni. I’m averse to all the pizza meats! I actively avoid pepperoni! You are terrible! Why are you also delicious? Why are you a surprisingly accurate blend of seasonings that I normally dislike but which I currently want in my facehole? Why are you in my pantry right now, calling to me, and why are you so more-ish? Why are you nasty and perfect? Why weren’t the boys correct when they thought you were $901? Why AREN’T you $90 so that Kevin will stop coming home with two of you? I don’t want you in my life! But you’re in my mouth right now! Why can’t I quit you? Stop it! WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS.
— Heather
The New Naked Gun Trailer Is Here
For some reason, I thought the new Naked Gun was a remake of the original, but apparently it’s a “legacy sequel” — so, I was way off the mark when I thought Pamela Anderson was sporting Priscilla Presley hair for promo reasons. Instead, Liam Neeson is playing Frank Drebin, Jr., which led to an OJ Simpson joke in the trailer that I admit to laughing at:
By the by, Leslie Nielsen would have been 97 if he were alive today and Liam Neeson is 73, so this human being definitely should have existed at the time of the first movie, though WHERE, because as we all know, Frank’s old love isn’t even ALIVE: “It's the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girls dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.” Further, Paul Walter Hauser plays George Kennedy’s son, though, and he’s only 38, while Kennedy was Nielsen’s age, so… I guess that character got it ON before he passed. I promise I am not going to think too hard about any of that, though; whether it’s part of the whole gag or not, these movies do not demand a lot of headspace, and I don’t have enough to go around.
Anyway, this looks arguably more like Liam Neeson using the Naked Gun cinematic universe to parody himself from the Taken franchise. Some of this looks passably entertaining, and some of it made me roll my eyes. I’ve decided to blame all of the latter on the influence of Seth MacFarlane, whom I don’t care for one bit!!! Dan Gregor, who is married to Rachel Bloom, is one of the credited screenwriters and MacFarlane contributed “additional literary material” — I think that’s code for “worked on an earlier draft” — and is listed as a producer, so I will just assign blame in a way that’s convenient to my predispositions. Cool? Yes!
Interestingly, the Wiki for this project includes the detail that David Zucker — the original writer — took a crack at the script in 2017, under the premise Naked: Impossible, saying that parody only works if it’s at the expense of something current. (There is a gag in this trailer that might be a holdover from that script.) Zucker might have a point there, because while Liam Neeson individually is making fun of himself in Taken — and that’s a modern peg on which to hang it — the rest of this feels very much in the vein of the Zucker Brothers. And Airplane! and of course this movie and even Hot Shots are classics for a reason, but they’re also Of An Era, and those parts of this trailer feel dated. Maybe I’m bumping up against the parody genre as a whole here. Those are time capsules to me, and even though all 43 Scary Movie sequels carried it into this century, there’s a reason they petered out. Theoretically all it’ll take is one cinematic success to revive the genre, but will it be this one? Real talk: I’ll probably see this with the boys someday, but in this economy, I’d rather splash out at the AMC for a screening of the original. Nothing, and I mean nothing, beats Enrico Palazzo.
— Heather
It’s No Penis/Vagina Song
We’ve complained about the Zoe Saldaña T-Mobile ads before, and it’s like the cellular company heard our bitching and decided to up the ante. To borrow from the Commercials I Hate subreddit (admittedly not a place to find a kind take on any ad), in a post titled Annoying lady screaming in t-mobile ad, why?:
Can you believe this woman recently won an Oscar?
The way she weirdly chatters the words, “There’s always a trade-in!” How she SHRIEKS, “No! AHHH!” completely inexplicably when it comes out that, no, there isn’t a trade-in, at such a loud volume that I myself actually kinda yelled the first time I saw this. When she says, “I’m a mom,” and takes a deflating balloon out of her bag. Every line she speaks feels like it’s from a totally different take and the director just threw caution to the wind and decided to meld three disparate vibes together. The result is pure confounding chaos.
Clearly, the only way to solve this is to borrow from the MCU tradition and have an after-credits scene where this T-Mobile salesperson goes up and says to his partner, “Zoe Saldaña came in today and was really squirrelly. Something is going on with her.”
– Jessica
PSA:
Some scheduling notes! The paid folks already know there will be no Thursday newsletter this week, because of the Juneteenth holiday. Also, there will be no free Tuesday newsletter the week of July 4; paid subscribers will still get a newsletter earlier that week. Paid subscribers will also continue to get their And Just Like That… recaps on their usual schedule.
And speaking of recaps! The Gilded Age is back this Sunday, June 22! (If you need to catch up with last season, you can do that here.) If you want to make sure you get all the dish about rich American girls being quasi-forced by their moms into marriages with penniless British lords; enterprising young servants who invent the alarm clock; rich dudes in the closet who accidentally lose their family fortune to a hot girl scammer; and, of course, the delicious looming possibility of Morgan Spector being hot on a horse as George Russell Trains ‘n’ Things Goes West….
ICYMI…
Last Call
— Remember when we covered the Hailee Steinfeld/Josh Allen wedding, and I noted that Vogue hadn’t gotten the exclusive? It’s because she saved it for her own publication, Beau Society, of which I was previously unaware. Good for her! Page Six has the scoop for those of us not on Hailee’s mailing list; the wedding does look delightful. — J
— Jason Isaacs, that messy bench, gave a banger of an interview to Vulture with some superb anecdotes about some of the movies he’s been in, and an intentionally vague blind item:
You once told an interviewer that you did a project with a prominent actor who literally pushed you out of the shot.
Oh Jesus. Did worse than that. Was the worst bully ever and a global icon. Did all the old tricks of doing a completely different performance off-camera than on. Yeah, it sucked. I’d never seen anything like it. Before, I would’ve licked the ground that this person walked on.
But there are also VERY entertaining snippets around it, such as his conversations with Dyan Cannon about Cary Grant, an Armageddon story, something about Jeff Goldblum… he gets into other territory as well, but I appreciate how unvarnished this feels. Even in discussing how he’s not gonna blow it all out in a memoir until he’s made an unassailable fortune and/or everyone who’d be in it is dead, he’s being pretty blunt. A PR person’s potential nightmare but a reader’s ideal. — H
— Over on The Bold and the Beckham, Romeo and his ex Kim Turnbull are posting things on social media about not engaging with “unnecessary lies,” and then Turnbull doubled down with, “I have never been romantically involved in ANY capacity at ANY point with the person in question. Nothing between us has occurred further than a school friendship at age 16. I would like to remove myself from the ongoing conversation & set the record straight for the sake of everyone involved.” But she doesn’t name the “person in question.” Is it… Brooklyn? Is it Romeo? Is she saying she was NEVER Romeo’s girlfriend, or that she never actually hooked up with Brooklyn? It’s messy and it’s vague and it’s giving:
My children do not have a logical bone in their body and just assumed $90 was correct because of inflation. — H
I was an English major, and one of my linguistics professors was absolutely OBSESSED with Hayakawa's book "Language in Thought and Action". We had a class that was basically entirely devoted to it.
Discovering Mr. Hayakawa's secret (?) passion for Smirnoff has just made me incredibly happy.
"Just assumed $90 was correct because of inflation" made me laugh so hard.