INDIE GRITS FILM FESTIVAL

I am SUPER busy this week getting caught up with school and with.... The Nickelodeon Theatre's annual Indie Grits Film Festival! Today is the kick-off day so I wanted to take a little time to hype it up and spread the word to my oh so many readers.

The festival begins tonight with an opening reception at Immaculate Consumption and the first screening of the week. Each afternoon/night until Saturday, there will be multiple screenings both at The Nick and at The Fox Theatre (Main St., where the Nick is moving to hopefully next summer) and parties/shows afterwards. Festival passes are sold out (hallelujah) but you can still buy individual screenings and shows for $6. All the music parties are $5.

You can start by coming to the Hunter Gatherer tonight at 10pm for 5 bucks. Mercy Mercy Me, The Choir Quit, and Kid Trails will be playing. Saturday night The Whig will be hosting a party at the Arcade Mall and there will also be music (I forgot who).

Go to the Indie Grits 2010 website and check out the schedule each night of screenings and events. I'll be working the Fox every night so at least come say hi :)

1920s, Valentines Day, and Chicken Marsala

well, Valentine's Day is over and all its related festivities. I never thought it would snow in February much less on any special occasion. On Thursday I pitied myself and how I just didn't feel like cooking. Well, the wintry weather took care of that. What could be better than being huddled up indoors with your favorite people, cooking and drinking and listening to records? I mentioned the St. Valentines Day Massacre party Andrew and I were attending with our friends Katie and Jeremy - it was a blast and no one broke the 1920s/gangster dress code.
for our Valentines date we saw a double-feature at The Nickelodeon: An Education and A Single Man. An Education was less intense than I expected, but better overall. I thought it was much more conclusive than I thought it would be in the end, and I loved so many of its characters. My favorite character was Miss Stubbs for her stubbornness, solid advice and wisdom, decisiveness on what was right and fearlessness to say it, but her grace and love that she gave to Jenny when she finally came back around. A Single Man is a lot harder to talk about and you will just have to go see it. It was sad, a little window into an unknown world for me, and I liked the color saturation/desaturation effects they played with. It was a little slow overall but I think that was part of what helps a conventional crowd eventually identify with an unconventional character.

so, I know I have been rambling on about non-food related things so I will cut to the chase! Chicken Marsala was on the menu for Valentines Day, and it turned out delicious with a few glitches (like, all the sauce stuck to the chicken in the pan and so all that was left in the skillet was oil to pour over. We were looking for more of a gravy to add to our pasta and chicken after serving). I used Tyler Florence's recipe with my own modifications (mainly for cost purposes):

4 boneless/skinless breasts, sliced lengthwise to make thin
All-purpose flour for coating
S/P
1/4 c. EVOO
8 oz. portabella mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
1/2 c. dry marsala wine
1/2 c. chicken stock
2 T unsalted butter
fresh parsley

Prepare the chicken and a large skillet with 1/4 c. EVOO on medium-high heat. In a dish, mix flour, sea salt and freshly ground pepper, stirring with a fork to mix well. Coat all sides of each chicken cutlet in flour and pan-fry in skillet for 5 minutes on each side, until done. Set aside and keep warm. Start pasta water to boil.

In the skillet, saute mushrooms until moisture has left and they are browned. Deglaze pan with 1/2 c. marsala wine and simmer ~2 minutes to cook out alcohol. Add 1/2 c. chicken stock, letting simmer for a few more minutes to reduce. Add the butter and stir in well, adding cooked fried chicken to coat in sauce. Add parsley - serve onto plates over bowtie pasta, putting lots of mushrooms on each plate!

We made green beans (great job Andrew) to go with our marsala. yum yum.

All the Missing Pieces

before I forget, I need to publicise the premiere (to my numerous readers) of a short film by USC students and graduates, All the Missing Pieces. It premieres Friday night, for FREE at the Nickelodeon theatre on S. Main Street. Showings will be first come, first serve, beginning at 10, 10:45, 11:30. the cute guy in my pictures from Asheville has numerous credits, like script supervisor, lights, b-roll camera (ha, like I know what that means), and the incredible last shot of the movie. it is directed by two of his good friends, Matt Aughtry and Nathan Willis. I would say this is a homegrown, totally local film, with actors from USC and from Greer, SC (where most of the movie was filmed); directed by USC and North Greenville University graduates, edited by Jeremy Lethco (see post: Chocolate-filled crescent rolls/engagement), featuring a song by Austin Crane, and all footage shot in beautiful upstate South Carolina. if you live in Columbia head out to the Nick on Friday night and watch an amazing short film which may be seen in indie film festivals this year by some brilliant aspiring filmmakers.