Thursday, August 10, 2017

The Last Tycoon; The First Spaghetti Carbonara

     Amazon Video got me -- started watching "The Last Tycoon" night before last. Now I'm three episodes in and I'm hooked.

     Like "Remember WENN," which it kind of resembles, right down to the perky gamine viewpoint character (though she certainly doesn't come from "Moosejaw or Elkhart or whatever combination of animal name and body part..."), it's a little hazy on year-specific style and fashion; but hey, it is Hollywood, right? The story is engrossing as can be and the sets are fabulous! Kelsey Grammer is a treat -- the man was born to play bastards -- and Matt Bomer is too handsome and knows it. I take issue with hairstyles; the men with hair wear it much too long around the ears -- about ten years too soon for it -- and the women's hair is mostly early-1930s and not always consistent with their socioeconomic status. Still and all, it's great good fun, a voyage back to an era both better and worse, full of glamor and desperation.

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    Discovered pasta carbonara a few days ago and realized I had never had it.  It sounded delicious, but none of the Italian places close by offered the dish.  Finding it in the classic original form is unlikely -- you have to add raw eggs to very hot but not presently-heated spaghetti and pork, and form a sauce without actually scrambling the eggs: there's no small risk of undercooking.  Do it right and you get a lovely, silky end result.

     So I determined to give it a try myself last night.  The experiment was a success. Beginner's luck, maybe: the egg and cheese mixture neither scrambled nor ended up underdone! I was downsizing the recipe on the fly and made too much pasta, easily remedied. Used two kinds of cheese, Parmesan and Pecorino Romano, with a bit of bacon and a bit of pancetta. I should crumble the meat up more next time, but I was very happy with how it came out.

6 comments:

mostly cajun said...

Gave up trying to find a real carbonara here that matched what I'd tasted at a little Italian restaurant in Germany, so I too made my own.

worth the effort...

Monty James said...

Watching films and television made in the Seventies, the hairstyles shown in stories set in the first half of the century spoil my enjoyment of the show. Mostly anachronistic, it made what I saw look like indifferent cosplay. Hard to get into the story that way.

Zendo Deb said...

I still will choose penne campagnola over carbonara every time. Unless there is a good homemade lasagna around.

Roberta X said...

Zendo, like this? It sounds delicious! I'll have to try it.

Monty James, a-men! Hair is hardest to get right, especially for lower-budget programs: actors are unwilling to make drastic changes unless the payday is sufficiently large. By that standard, "The Last Tycoon" isn't hugely adrift -- and it is set in Hollywood, so some stylistic idiosyncrasies are to be expected.

Although episode four took a shocking turn (was Marlene Deitrich's home life *that* lurid? Even given the givens -- she was, privately, quite a libertine; but privately -- it seems unlikely our young heroine would have encountered it in person) but I am impressed with F. Scott Fitzgerald's ability to spin a yarn. He was one of those "important" writers I avoided as a child, figuring it to be more over-inflated hype. Maybe not. He's set up a four-sided love triangle, with complications, and is making it work.

Roberta X said...

Arrgh! "...but I am impressed" should just be "...I am impressed."

Nik said...

I too like Pasta Carbonara, since discovering it on an episode of Graham Kerr's show. He adds some ingredients like pine nuts, sundried tomatoes, and chives, that kick the flavor of an already awesome dish up another notch. He also turned me on to the idea of draining the pasta through a colander that's been placed inside a heatproof bowl. when you then remove the colander and pasta, and set them on a plate to finish draining, the bowl has been preheated by the boiling water. Pour out water, add pasta back into bowl, add other ingredients and quickly toss, and the sauce cooks perfectly between the heat of the pasta and the heated bowl. Time to go shopping for dinner -- I now know what to make tonight! :-)