Euro Eating!

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With less than a week left until I leave for my family vacation to Europe, I have been put in charge of planning our itineraries and looking up all the information for where we want to go.

Essentially, I have been assigned to be our free-of-charge tour guide.

While I plan out where we go and how we get there, I have been thinking of food. Some people gave me great suggestions on Facebook for what I should be seeking out when I’m abroad, including but not limited to:

  • Döner kebab in Berlin (apparently, Turkish food is really popular as street food in Germany and most of Europe)
  • Ratatouille in Paris (hoping the French chefs’ versions blow the American ones I’ve had out of the water)
  • Gelato or gelato crepes from Amorino in Paris
  • Mogador (passionfruit) macaron from Pierre Herme in Paris
  • Ice cream (but not sorbet!) from Berthillion in Paris
  • Bangers & mash and fish & chips in London
  • Snails & frogs legs in Paris (psh, I’ve already had the Chinese versions of these)\
  • Beef bourguignone in Paris
  • Brændende kærlighed in Copenhagen
  • Kroppkaka in Stockholm
  • Blini in St. Petersburg

What else should I be absolutely SURE to eat?
What can I pass on? What should I avoid?

To give you some insight on my food preferences, I don’t really like dairy and I do not eat cheese. I have kind of a wimpy palate, so nothing terribly spicy or SUPERDUPERBOLD in flavor would be preferable.

Sunbrellas and Parasols

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The mid-Atlantic area is currently experiencing what is supposed to be the hottest day of a grueling heat wave, with the DC area supposedly getting the worst of it.

Guess where I live.

I saw a Twitter update from Anna Kendrick that hit home for me:

ParasolsJust… yes.

In China (and in fact, most parts of the world), umbrellas are regularly used to provide a personal spot of shade for you wherever you may go. The word “umbrella” comes from the root word umbra. Umbrella means “little shade”. When I’m in China, I am at a distinct disadvantage because when I’m walking on a sidewalk, most if not all the people carrying umbrellas are a bit shorter than me, leaving me at the perfect height to get an umbrella to the face. I like that I can carry an umbrella around in China, because it makes a world of a difference temperature-wise.

Original Function of the Umbrella
Courtesy of OneBag.com

Alas alack. When I carry my super nifty sunbrella that was my most prized possession in China, I get judged so hard. I feel the judgment especially harshly from fellow Asian Americans, who seem embarrassed by how fobby I look.

UH. I’m sorry that I want to stay cool and that I don’t feel like roasting my skin under the heat of the sun. Plus, I’ll admit, I feel very ladylike when I carry an umbrella around. It’s a little inconvenient but I kind of feel like I’m indulging myself in a little bit of shade. Delicious. (Plus, my sunbrella is beautiful.)

So. Fashion designers and trendsetters.  Get to making this an acceptable thing here please.

Do you carry an umbrella to keep the sun off your back? Have you ever considered it?

The Heat

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I went to see The Heat on a whim this weekend. When I first saw the trailers for the film a few months ago, I didn’t think too much of it. Buddy cop movie with Sandra Bullock playing some kind of twisted version of her Miss Congeniality character and Melissa McCarthy, who seems to be getting typecast as this type of brash, less than savory character in many of her silver screen roles. I thought it would be funny but didn’t think that many people would care. It has, however, gotten some good press, and I’m hearing everyone from my younger brother to Harry Shum Jr. recommend the film to others.

SO. Buddy cop film where the twist is female cops. I laughed and laughed. Since it’s the feature debut of a screenwriter, it’s only right that the jokes are great in this movie. I was tickled pink seeing Tom Wilson, best known for playing Biff Tannen et al. in the Back to the Future trilogy. (I was somehow watching The Heat with 2 people who had no idea what I was talking about when I pointed this out. What. Buttheads.) Bullock and McCarthy are also pretty safe bets as far as comedy goes. Their roles didn’t challenge them to portray characters they haven’t portrayed before (Bullock as the uptight and therefore unlikable and therefore lonely Ashburn; McCarthy as loud and brash and messy Mullins) but they are reliable characters that play a reliable foil to each other.

Plotwise, The Heat was pretty predictable. I wasn’t disappointed by the predictability moreso than I was disappointed by how the movie seemed to actually try quite hard to catch you by surprise. Oy.

When a movie like this focuses SO HARD on the two leads, the other characters get really… just blah. You don’t really know why they’re there or what to do with them. I got a little giggle out of seeing “Gina… Jessica Chaffin | Gina’s Boobs… Jessica Chaffin’s Boobs” during the credits and all (and yes, they did merit their own credit line, spilling out of Chaffin’s top for an agonizing minute) but some of the characters just flopped around wanting and deserving more but not getting it: Wilson’s sad and pathetic Boston PD chief, Marlon Wayans as the wannabe romantic opposite to Bullock, Spoken Reasons as the hilarious small-time drug dealer.

I really liked The Heat. I felt like there was potential for much more, but it was really funny. This was a good feature debut for director Katie Dippold (who writes for the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation). There is no reason why anyone should doubt the hilarity of a buddy-cop movie that stars women instead of men. Women are funny, end of discussion.