Last night PJ and I watched Make the Yuletide Gay, which is about a 22-year-old college student, Olaf “Gunn” Gunnunderson, who goes home for Christmas to visit his parents, who don’t know that he’s gay. When his boyfriend,  Nathan, shows up unexpectedly, comic mayhem ensues. Here’s the trailer:

After watching the movie, I read some other reviews online. The most accurate summary would be that Make the Yuletide Gay got mixed reviews. On the one hand, some people criticize it for being over the top, badly written, and cheaply produced. On the other hand, positive reviews praise its humor, good intentions, and leading performances. I can’t totally disagree with the former, but I nevertheless loved this movie. I think it’s a fun, adorable, heart-warming Christmas movie, and it’s about time we gays got a fun, adorable, heart-warming Christmas movie!

One of my main beef against gay independent films is that they tend to fall into two categories: either drug dealers show up deus ex machina-like to either kill or at the very least pose a threat to the romantic leads or the writer/director/star had a good idea but then never gets beyond that one (often funny or clever) idea. Make the Yuletide Gay could easily have fallen into either of these categories but admirably avoided these pitfalls. Some scenes and characters are badly written, it probably was made on a shoestring budget, and is definitely over the top at times, but all for the right reasons: to create a fun, positive movie. I think the filmmakers have succeeded.

The movie stars Keith Jordan as Gunn, who is totally queer on campus but closeted at home. Jordan plays this part with a calm likeability that helps to ground the movie in some semblance of reality as other characters are allowed to soar way over the top of realism. Jordan’s Gunn becomes an everygay, and I think this is largely due to Jordan’s understated performance. The opening scene in which Gunn turns in his last final exam before heading home only to learn that his professor has the hots for him is especially fun — I think professors (gay or straight) often fantasize about such moments. Jordan’s opening scene quickly establishes his character’s humor, evenness, and attractiveness.

Adamo Ruggiero plays Nathan, Gunn’s boyfriend. Ruggiero is most famous for starring in Degrassi: The Next Generation, where he played a gay character, and for coming out as a gay man about two years ago. Since acknowledging his gayness, Ruggiero has been active in gay causes, especially some PSAs concerning gay teen issues.

If I were a teen or undergraduate, I’d totally have the hots for Ruggiero. He’s totally cute and a good performer. I especially liked that he was able to make Nathan both a bit of a flamer and a normal person. In some scenes, he switched back and forth between being totally gay and then being less performative. I think that added depth to his character and performance. In real life, most of us can and do switch back and forth in an instance between “being gay” and “being normal,” for lack of better words. Like Jordan, he imbues his character with humor, likeability, and normalcy.

This is important, since most of the other characters are totally over the top. Kelly Keaton, for example, plays Gunn’s mother as a bubbly, seemingly oblivious cartoon character who laughs more than she talks. Similarly, Derek Long, who plays Gunn’s pothead father, is simply bizarre until we realize that he’s high all the time. And Nathan’s parents, played by Ian Buchanan and Gates McFadden are caricatures of the cold, wealthy, New England parents who couldn’t care less about their son. Finally, Alison Arngrim’s turn as the Gunnunderson’s desperate housewife neighbor is little more than camp.

But all of this works for me because the central couple, Gunn and Nathan, are so likeable and relatively drama (or camp) free. And I was delighted that, despite the pot references, no drug dealers showed up to collect their money, no one gets killed in a deal gone wrong, and, while this movie loves jokes about sleeping on the top bunk or the bottom (and I love that Nathan, the more obviously gay character, prefers to top while Gunn loves to bottom!), I enjoyed the campy humor because it goes hand in hand with the movie’s positive themes of love, family, and relationship. It’s a sweet movie that made me laugh.

Make the Yuletide Gay was written, directed, and co-produced by Rob Williams, who also wrote, directed, and produced 3-Day Weekend, Back Soon, and Long-Term Relationship. I haven’t always liked Williams’s movies (see my review of Back Soon) but I really hope there’s a sequel to this one. At the very least, I know have a favorite gay Christmas movie to watch each year!

This week’s song of the week is M. Ward’s “Rave On.” It’s one of my favorite songs on his album, Hold Time. Here’s the video:

What I love most about this song is that it’s a sweet little love song. It was originally written in 1958 by Sonny West, Bill Tilghman, and Norman Petty. A number of artists have covered it since then, including Bruce Springsteen, Buddy Holly (with whom it seems to be most associated), the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and John Mellencamp. Ward’s version is my favorite; I like how he’s slowed it down a bit and stripped it down too.

Here’s a live version I found on YouTube:

Here are the lyrics:

The little things that you say and do
Make me want to be with you
You rave on, it’s a crazy feelin’
I know, she’s got me reelin’
When you say I love you, rave on

The way you dance and hold me tight
The way you kiss when we say goodnight
Rave on, it’s a crazy feeling
And I, I know it’s got me reelin’
When you say I love you, rave on

Rave on, it’s a crazy feeling
And I, I know its got me reelin’
I’m so glad that you’re revealing your love for me
Rave on, rave on, tell me, tell me not to be lonely
Tell me, you love me only, rave on to me

Oh, oh, rave on, it’s a crazy feeling
And I, I know its got me reelin’
I’m so glad that you’re revealin’ your love for me
Oh, rave on, rave on, tell me, tell me not to be lonely
Tell me, you love me only, rave on to me

The little things that you say and do
Make me want to be with you
Rave on, it’s a crazy feeling
And I know, she’s got me reelin’
When you say I love you, rave on

Oh, rave on, it’s a crazy feeling
And I, I know its got me reelin’
I’m so glad that you’re revealin’ your love for me
Rave on, rave on, tell me, tell me not to be lonely
Tell me, you love me only, rave on to me
Rave on to me, rave on to me

Over the weekend PJ and I watched Dog Tags, a movie about a guy, Nate, played by Paul Preiss, who joins the marines in order to please his girlfriend and his mother. While home from basic training, Nate gets a rude awakening about the girlfriend and meets Andy, played by Bart Fletcher, a gay guy with his own set of problems. The two men hit it off, leading both to make some important decisions about their futures.

I couldn’t find a trailer for the movie, so here’s a clip I found on YouTube. It takes place after Nate (the guy in bed) and Andy (the guy in the shower) have spent a night in a motel together.

I’m glad I found this clip because it illustrates what I like about this movie. First off, Preiss is great in this role. His Nate is a typical guy who’s just trying to do the best he can in life. His main problem is that he doesn’t know how he is. Raised by a single mother who isn’t very honest about his origins and who is torn between her hope that the marines will give him direction and that he’ll fail to become a marine, Nate pretty much just goes through life doing what everyone tells him to do. He’s not a big thinker.

Yet Preiss creates a character that is good-hearted and sincere, even if he isn’t terribly bright. As we get to know him better, however, we see that he is smart and has a lot of potential; he’s just never had the opportunity to figure things out for himself.

Andy is equally clueless. We soon learn that his most recent relationship was with a marine and that the relationship ended suddenly. Unable to move on, he decides to abandon all responsibility and just wander around the U.S. until he finds “his calling.” The exact nature of some of these responsibilities is also surprising.

Nate and Andy quickly become drawn to one another after meeting in an amateur porn director’s bedroom. One of the things I like about this movie is that we never see exactly what their relationship is. Just before the clip above, for example, the two share a bed, make out, and seem to be heading toward sex when Andy stops what’s happening and lays his head on Nate’s chest. The clip above is where the next scene begins, so we don’t know if they continued with the sex or never did it. The same thing happens at the end of the scene: the closing door implies that Nate gets into the shower and that the two men have sex with one another, but nothing confirms this in the film.

I was a little surprised that I liked this element of the film. I think I liked the ambiguity that it creates. Rather than give us simple categories — such as Nate is really gay or really straight — we are left to fill in what we think happens between these two characters. Furthermore, this ambiguity seems more realistic. A man like Nate — a working class marine with a girlfriend — might not immediately identify as “gay”even when he’s drawn to another man and maybe even fucks him a few times. And finally, this ambiguity makes this relationship about a lot more than just sex. Andy and Nate suddenly share a bond that transforms them both, but that bond isn’t solely or merely or perhaps even primarily about sex or sexual identity. I really admire how complicated this makes their relationship, whatever it is.

I also really liked writer-director Damion Dietz’s style of storytelling. The narrative occasionally jumps back and forth between past and present in moments that show a character’s (usually Andy’s) memories and how they affect the present. In some cases, this leads us to question which parts of the narrative are the past and which are the present. This potential complication makes the film even more interesting, I think.

Preiss is certainly good (and attractive) as Nate. (Preiss also has an interesting website, part of which is devoted to his photography; it also has a few acting clips.) And Fletcher is equally good as Andy. (And also has a website.) Plus, I’m a sucker for a guy with eyeliner, which is Andy’s signature look. As the above clip suggests, this film isn’t afraid of a little skin, but it doesn’t exploit nudity or sex just for titillation’s sake.

Overall, I thought this was a very interesting and well crafted movie. It’s a relatively quiet film that relies more on dialogue than action. I really like it.

On Friday, PJ and I watched Wrecked, a gay indy we rented from Netflix. Here’s the trailer:

Wrecked is about a would-be actor, Ryan, whose plans become derailed when his ex, Daniel, suddenly shows up and wants to crash at his house indefinitely. Although Ryan knows that Daniel is no good, he agrees to let him back into his life. When it becomes apparent that Daniel is still a drug addict and unable to commit to a monogamous relationship, Ryan has to decide whether to kick him out or jump right in to Daniel drug-fueled sexual escapades. He chooses the latter, and his life quickly begins to spin out of control.

Theo Montgomery, which is apparently a pseudonym for actor Jake Casey, stars as Ryan. (PJ thinks that all of the actors on this movie used pseudonyms, but I don’t have time to confirm that right now.) I thought his performance was excellent. His Ryan has a winning mix of youthful gay attitude and innocence. I assume Casey and the other acts use fake names here because of the sexually explicit nature of this movie, and maybe they thought it would hurt their careers or embarrass their families or something.

And this film is sexually explicit. We see the four of the actors completely nude. They make out, feel each other up, get erections (which we see), feel each others erections up, and (presumably) simulate anal sex.

But Wrecked is not porn. While some of the oral activities seem real, the movie never shows actual penetration elsewhere (is that euphemistic enough?!). But I don’t think these scenes are really meant to be all that arousing, at least not in the way that porn is meant to be stimulating. Don’t get me wrong: seeing these actors make out, roll around together, get aroused, and simulate sex is definitely hot, but I don’t think anyone would ever confuse this movie for porn (except maybe crazy right-wing religious people who see gay porn in everything).

I really admire this film’s use of explicit sexual content. It has the effect of grounding the action and characters in a sense of reality. And I like that the sex scenes have a feeling of reality to them rather than the artificial feeling of my movie sex scenes, which are more interested in hiding genitalia than in capturing something that seems real and truthful.

Some of the publicity materials for this movie compare it to Shortbus, which is one of my favorite movies. But where you never forget you’re watching a fictional film when you watch Shortbus, Wrecked feels more like mumblecore or a documentary, like we’re eavesdropped on these guys’ “real” lives. I like that element of the film a lot. (I mean this as a description of its style and not its content, btw.)

Because of the sexual nature of this film, I think the actors are really brave to be in it — not brave enough to use their real names, but still very brave. Obviously, the vast majority of actors in movies aren’t brave enough to show their full bodies, much less their bodies in a state of arousal. That these actors are able to do that and yet keep that part of the film secondary to their larger performances is really saying something about their acting, I think.

The film is an hour and 15 minutes long. I really liked the first hour and especially admired its edginess, its forging new cinematic ground, and its overall realistic style. But the last 15 minutes really disappointed me. Unfortunately, the movie descends into a totally predictable morality tale that just made me roll my eyes. This last part of the film is just too simple, too simplistic. And this stands in marked contrast to the first hour, which is anything by simple or simplistic.

Ultimately, I wish the directors, Harry and Bernard Schumanski, would have kept the courage of their convictions, so to speak, and made the last act as compelling, as new, and as interesting as the first hour. I admire what they were trying to do; I just wish they had taken the ending somewhere new and interesting as well.

Reading Made in Brazil, one of my favorite blogs, gives me a new reason almost every day to want to visit Brazil. Here’s today’s reason:

Based on this video I have to say that Arthur Sales is a perfect ambassador for Brazilian tourism! (Watching his video for Butch also makes me want to workout!)

Rodrigo Calazans, one of my favorite Brazilian models, was the “face” of Butch in 2009. Here’s a making of video for his campaign:

For much of the past year, a picture from Calazans’ Butch campaign has been my desktop photo on my computer.

And finally, the third reason I’ve found so far to visit Brazil is Edilson Nascimento, who is destined to become a male supermodel, I think:

If these guys are any indication of the natural beauty Brazil has to offer, PJ and I definitely need to vacation there soon!

This week’s song of the week is Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” the first single off of her new(ish) album, The Fame Monster. Here’s the video, which is crazy amazing:

Since watching the video, I’ve been reading various online reviews of it. Partly, I thought this might help me try to understand it a little more — I think Lady Gaga is a brilliant performance artist, but I don’t always think I’m “getting it” as thoroughly as I’d like to. And I was just interested in what other people had to say about it.

Critics agree that the overall message of the video is to critique various aspects of fame. As Christopher John Farley explains, “The theme of the video seems to be something about how fame seduces, addicts and perverts those that attain it.”

The best part of the video, of course, is the visuals Lady Gaga creates. As Marina Reed points out, “Only Lady GaGa could make getting kidnapped, drugged, and auctioned off to the Russian mafia look this good.” My favorite parts are the crazy eyes while she’s in the bathtub, the use of back lighting in several parts of the video, the hot Russian mafia guys’ bare chests and shoulders and tattoos (they can kidnap my ass any time they want!), the grotesque image of the nude Lady Gaga as deformed and emaciated captive, the hairless cat (totally brilliant), the floating jewels part, Lady Gaga’s white thong (she’s smoking too!), and, of course, the video’s final image. I guess that means I love it all!

Farley similarly writes that “The singer-songwriter-pianist-provocateur seems to be one of the few pop stars these days who really understands spectacle, fashion, shock, choreography—all the things Madonna and Michael Jackson were masters of in the 1980s.” I totally agree with this. Lady Gaga is for me the most interesting video artist producing music right now.

Several writers note that this video gives us a closer look at Lady Gaga’s face than we usually get in her videos. There are several shots that feature close-ups of her face with very little makeup (or at least with makeup that is more understated than her videos tend to feature). As Farley writes, “The ‘Bad Romance’ music video, which takes place in the ‘Bath Haus of Gaga,’ shows us a new side of the singer-songwriter by actually showing her more clearly and closely than we’ve seen in some of her past clips—there are lots of intimate shots of her naked face, unveiled, unobstructed.”

I think E! Online sums up the general consensus of reviews I’ve read:

In the past, we’ve found her relentless ploys for attention pretty exhausting (“Ugh, can she try any harder?”), but this music video really makes us appreciate everything Gaga actually brings to pop music.

She’s exciting to watch, plain and simple. Sure, her theatrics might cause a few eye-rolls, and she definitely isn’t breaking any pop music conventions, but while Britney’s out there making the same old boring video, we need someone like Gaga to really bring it. To put actual thought and care into her product so that it feels alive.

So keep on being a weirdo, Gaga. Will it bother us? Yeah, sometimes. But other times we really do need a pop star in tranny makeup to wear a polar bear rug/cape and start some stuff on fire.

Although I don’t agree with the part about her being “pretty exhausting” sometimes, I do think her video demonstrates just how lazy some of today’s other pop divas have become in their videos. I watched Britney’s video for “3″ this week and was really surprised by how boring it was. I’m not a fan of hers to begin with, but I had expected more after hearing about the song and its theme. One thing you can definitely say about Lady Gaga is that she’s not going to be boring any time soon!

It also seems to me that her shorter hair look near the end of the video (when she’s dressed in red) seems vaguely reminiscent of early Madonna. I think that Lady Gaga has taken up Madonna’s mantle like no one else in the past few years. She’s also taken up (and surpassed) Madonna’s advocacy for gay issues, which is great since we gave Lady Gaga her first passionate group of fans.

It’s true that this song isn’t the most lyrically interesting, but I think Farley is correct when he writes that “It’s particularly hard to resist the Jabberwockian catchiness of the ‘Bad Romance’ hook: ‘Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah! Roma-roma-mamaa! Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!’”

So, I think this is an amazing video and a really catchy song. Once again I have to say that Lady Gaga is brilliant!

While PJ and I were driving to Washington D.C. last week, we talked a little about songs about driving. One of my favorites has long been Chely Wright’s “Shut Up and Drive,” so when we got back I downloaded it from iTunes and started listening to it again.

The embedding for the video has been disabled on YouTube, but you can watch it here. (Usually, I don’t choose songs that won’t let you embed the video — I think it’s stupid when they do that — but I love this song enough to overcome that prejudice.)

Now I can’t stop listening to this song. It’s really a great country song, I think. Somebody really ought to cover it.

Listening to it again also made me think about the late 1980s and early 1990s and when I loved a number of country songs, mostly by female artists. Here’s a list (in no particular order) of some of the ones I loved back then. Some of these video also have embedding disabled, but I’ll include what I can and link to what I can’t.

“Like We Never Had a Broken Heart” by Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks:

“Come Next Monday” by K. T. Oslin:

“Maybe It Was Memphis” by Pam Tillis:

“The Dance” by Garth Brooks:

“Something in Red” by Lorrie Morgan

“For My Broken Heart” and “Does He Love You” (which is a GREAT video, btw) by Reba McEntire

“What Made You Say That” (she’s so hot in this video, but the guy is even hotter!) by Shania Twain

“No One Else on Earth” by Wynonna:

“Love at the Five and Dime,” “Once in a Very Blue Moon,” and “More than a Whisper” by Nanci Griffith (though she’s not exactly country):

Going back and listening to these songs again made me wonder about the state of country music more recently. I don’t ever listen to country, though I do see how talented Carrie Underwood is. And the Dixie Chicks are amazing. Otherwise, most of it isn’t really to my taste any more.

But I’m glad to take this little trip down nostalgia lane, though I’m trying really hard not to buy all of these songs and albums again from iTunes!

]]> http://thisgaudygildedstage.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/sotw-shut-up-and-drive-by-chely-wright/feed/ 0 thisgaudygildedstage http://thisgaudygildedstage.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/pageant-a-review/ http://thisgaudygildedstage.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/pageant-a-review/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:39:53 +0000 thisgaudygildedstage http://thisgaudygildedstage.wordpress.com/?p=1138 ]]>

PJ was feeling under the weather on Saturday, so instead of going out for Halloween, we decided to stay in and watch Pageant, a documentary about the Miss Gay America Pageant. Here’s the trailer:

Simply put, I loved this documentary. Let’s start with the level of being a documentary. This film focuses on five of the 52 contestants in the Miss Gay America Pageant. I liked this emphasis on just a small sampling of the contestants, since it allows you to become familiar with them and start rooting for (or against) one or more of them. This focus creates the documentary’s narrative and sucks up into the competitions and back- and onstage dramas.

Like the ladies in the Miss American Pageant, these ladies participate in a series of competitions before the pageant’s finale, where the finalists are named and then compete for the crown. We see the contestants undergo an interview as men — they are required to dress in male clothing and are judged, in part, on their ability to distance themselves from their drag persona. They have a solo talent competition, in which they have to perform alone and without separate props. Then they have a talent production contest, in which they can have back-up dancers, props, and sets. And they have to compete in evening gowns.

On the final night of the competition, the finalists compete once again in evening wear and production talent and answer an interview question (this time in their drag persona). The focus on five contestants allows us to keep up with all of these events and put them into context with all of the backstage drama and activities going on in these men’s lives.

In addition to the focus and narrative, I love the attitude this documentary takes towards its subject. These men are not depicted as freaks or even outrageous divas. They are humanized and shown as men who really care about what they’re doing. Some of them want fame. Some want fortune. Some want attention. They all want to win.

This element also adds to the drama. I don’t think you can watch this documentary without hoping that one or other of the contestants will win, depending on your point of view. I don’t think the documentary stacks the deck against any of the five ladies we follow, which is another thing I like. It doesn’t play favorites. We see each of the contestants on their own. I ended up liking some more than others but not because the filmmakers decided in advance who they wanted me to like.

We also get to see some of the contestants’ families and friends. It’s great to see the support some of these guys get from their mothers, for example, or little brothers. Others are married and enjoy the support of their husbands. One spends the film with what we assume is his boyfriend, who turns out not to be (supposedly).

I also love the men/ladies who are competing in this pageant. The documentary starts by telling us a little about each of them. We get to see their home lives and occupations outside of the pageant. While I sometimes thought that one or another of the ladies was kidding themselves or liked one’s talent more than the others and so forth, these men all seem like people who would be fun to know. And I don’t just mean as drag queens. Apart from that (though also including it), these men seem like good, creative, and interesting people. They might be a little crazy sometimes, but who isn’t?

And finally, I loved the excitement that the documentary creates about the final night of competition. By the time we get to the end, I was really invested in the outcome. In fact, this documentary made me want to go to the pageant, and I immediately looked up where it was taking place next. Unfortunately, this year’s pageant happened this weekend in St. Louis. I couldn’t believe it! I think it would be fun to go to the contest and watch it live. Maybe next year I’ll get to go.

The other thing I did after watching the documentary was check out who has won the crown in the years since. I was surprised that some of the contestants featured in the film went on to place in the top five again and at least one has won the crown. Others have dropped out of the competition. It was interesting to get a little info on what’s happened to them.

One of my favorite shows this year was RuPaul’s Drag Race, which clearly owes a debt to the Miss Gay America Pageant. I hope the next season of RDR will feature even more contestants. If not, the pageant should investigate the possibility to becoming a t.v. series too. I really enjoyed it and want to see more.

PJ and I spent four days last week in Washington D.C. I was attending the conference of the National Collegiate Honors Council, and PJ was doing a little work at the Library of Congress.

D.C. is one of the first cities that PJ and I visited together in the 1990s. In retrospect, it’s a great “first city” to visit: if you stay downtown, the city is fairly easy to navigate by foot, car, and/or metro. And it’s difficult now to believe how accessible all of the government buildings were before 9/11. My first memory of being at the Capitol is that we practically just walked right in — we went through a metal detector, but that was about it. Today, everything’s much more secure.

We drove over, which took about 6 hours. The mountains of West Virginia and Maryland were gorgeous. The autumnal landscape was breath-taking with its combinations of reds, browns, yellows, greens, and oranges. Just outside of D.C. it started to drizzle a bit, but overall it was a fairly easy drive.

Because of the drizzle, I didn’t take any pictures the first evening we were there. The next morning, PJ and I walked over to the Capitol before parting ways: he walked on to the Library of Congress while I visited the National Art Gallery before heading back to our hotel to attend a conference session.

Here are some of the pictures I took during this walk:

I’ll blog about my visit to the National Art Gallery later. I also went to the National Portrait Gallery. But mostly I worked.

On Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, I attended sessions of the NCHC Conference. The Wednesday session was called “Beginning in Honors” and offered an introduction to honors education administration. The session wasn’t quite what I expected, but I learned a few things that I think will be good to know.

My main gripe against the conference is that all of the sessions I would have liked to attend were scheduled at the same two times on Thursday morning. I wish these panels had been spread out a little more. I ended up attending sessions on Assessing Honors Programs and Fundraising for Honors Programs. Both were incredibly helpful. These two sessions alone were worth the registration price!

On Thursday, I also started visiting some of my college’s alumni who live in D.C. I had lunch that day with one of the first graduates from our program in the mid-1970s. A colleague from the University Development Office also came to these meetings with me, which was great. I’m not great at small talk and she is, so it was really helpful to have her there. On Friday, we had breakfast with a graduate from the late 1990s and then coffee with an alumna from the 1980s.

It was really great to have this time talking to alumni. It’s given me a lot to think about as we move forward in trying to publicize the college and do fund-raising.

Thursday afternoon is when PJ and I went to the Portrait Gallery. By then, however, he was starting to feel sick, so we didn’t end up doing much that evening — just dinner and then back to the hotel. By Friday morning he was definitely not feeling well, so we decided to check out early and leave D.C. a day early. Although this meant that I missed out on going to any more of the conference or seeing more of D.C. or hanging out with a friend who was there, it felt like the right thing to do. I’d rather he be home and in his own bed with Paisley and Marlowe there to help me take care of him than stick around in the hotel room for another day.

All in all, it was a very successful trip. I look forward to going to the conference next year in Kansas City. And I might be headed back to D.C. in February for another conference. I doubt that the city will be quite as beautiful then, however!

Yesterday I decided to cook for a change. On weekdays, I’m usually so tired after a long day at the office that we have started going out to eat a lot. I therefore try to cook at least once on the weekends.

So, yesterday I opened up one of our vegetarian cookbooks and liked the first recipe I saw: Harvest Vegetable and Lentil Casserole. The picture in the cookbook actually looked like a soup, but apparently anything you bake can be a casserole. Here’s what the final product looked like:

I really liked it. I tend to like lentils anyway, and the vegetables came out great. Plus, it was really easy to make. I even saved some so that I could come home today for lunch and heat up a serving.

I’ll post the recipe after the break.

Here’s the recipe:

1 T oil

2 leeks, sliced into large pieces

1 garlic clove, minced

4 celery ribs, sliced into large pieces

2 carrots, sliced

2 parsnips, sliced

1 sweet potato, cubed

6 oz brown lentils

1 can chopped tomatoes

1 T fresh marjoram, chopped

1 T fresh thyme, chopped

3 and 3/4 c. vegetable broth

1 T cornstarch

salt and pepper to taste

fresh thyme for garnish

While preheating the oven to 350 degrees, heat the oil in a large oven-proof casserole dish or stew pot. Add the leeks, garlic, and celery and cook for 3 minutes.

Add the carrots, parsnips, sweet potato, lentils, tomatoes, herbs, stock, and salt and pepper. Stir well. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.

Cover and bake for 50 minutes or until lentils are cooked and tender. While it is cooking, remove the casserole from the oven and stir the vegetables once or twice so that they are evenly cooked.

Remove the casserole from the oven. Mix the cornstarch with 3 T. cold water in a small bowl then add it to the casserole. Stir until the broth thickens. Simmer gently for 2 minutes.

Spoon into bowls and garnish with remaining thyme.