Netflix Documentary: A Matter of Taste

"Sally Rowe`s documentary dishes a rare glimpse into the heated world of haute cuisine, with brilliant and controversial chef Paul Leibrant navigating other chefs, food critics, restaurant owners and more"

This one caught my eye because I love to cook. I went to a culinary Vo tech program in high school and missed finishing by one test..that they wanted me to pay like 100 dollars to take after I had graduated. So I said screw that, and took my cooking to my home life. At least this way my food is enjoyed after it has been slaved over.

We watch from the underside as Paul Leibrant decorates what would be a dish with food sauces in an artistic way. I always loved being able to express myself with the food sauces in school. He is described as being an innovator and being cutting edge in nearly every way. He makes food that other people would only dream to try, and successfully gets people to like it. A few dishes that are told to us are:

*Chocolate Covered Scallops
&
*Espuma of calf`s brains and foie gras

A few chefs comment on Paul`s food, saying there really is no way to tell if you`re going to like it, because there has never been anything done like it before. One chef refuses to comment because he hates the food style, and we watch as a dish is constructed with cherries and some sort of jelly. The dishes we have seen so far are tiny and delicate. The speaker describes them as "cute" Then we learn that in 2000 Paul became the youngest chef to receive 3 stars from the New York Times. Which makes you start to wonder if he really is innovative, or if he is just different and that is causing a stir?

 Paul says he learned his style from a few guys he trained with in Europe. He states the restaurants  he worked in were very very good, but they were all the same. What he has started doing is taking a base, which is something we know, and taking away a flavor, or adding in something you would never add in on your own. It makes people wonder, and throws people off. This could have gone very badly, but he got lucky that humans are a curious species.
   We watch him work for awhile, and just by watching his demeanor you learn he is very passionate about his work. Even though he is famous, he still crafts nearly every plate by hand, and makes most of the food himself. The plates are constructed one by one, each one could be the same dish but they look unique.

He is a bit goofy, they had a spot of bad luck with one of his restaurants and had to go back to making burgers and fries. So he decides to have a french fry tasting with different cuts and spices for the fries.  Paul has no lover, instead prefers to say he is married to the kitchen. We witness him leaving the burger flipping trade and heading out to get back into serious cooking.

It was a slower documentary, with a lot of comments and insight from Paul himself. You really get to see inside his mind and see some of the unique dishes he thinks up. He wants to create emotion with his food, and awake the senses, not just give you something you`ve had before. I rated it as a 4 star myself but it is definitely worth the watch in my opinion.

Netflix Documentary: Orgasm Inc.

When I start watching documentaries, I just can`t stop. I scoured through the Netflix directory this morning and added over 20 interesting documentaries on a variety of subjects. They are less widely known, so maybe by writing about what I`ve learned I can point people towards a good learning experience.

This one was about the "myth of female sexual dysfunction."

To me, I thought it was true. I have my own issues with achieving an orgasm, and I relate it mostly to stress. In the beginning of the film they have several women describing what an orgasm is to them. There was one woman in particular who said it was like having a war with herself. She felt that something was wrong with her because she couldn`t, and that she fought with herself mentally because she wanted to, but couldn`t.

So we get into the movie and meet the film maker. She was hired by this company Vivus, who was trying out a cream to help women achieve orgasm. They wanted her to make a sexual film that they would have the women watch after apply the cream in order to measure the sexual response and figure out if the cream worked or not.

They discuss how Vivus produced a drug called Muse, which was the leading ED product until Viagra was marketed, so they then turned their attention to women and their FSD, or Female Sexual Dysfunction. Every company on the market was making something and joining the race for fda approval, whether it was curing these women or not. Everyone wanted to be the first company to cure FSD.
  But what IS FSD? Its a "disease" created by doctors and unrealistic expectations. Women are led to believe they need to orgasm every time they have sex, they are lead to believe that they should be as sexually active in their 60s as they were in their 20s. Our race has decided that everything needs to be able to be fixed with a pill or a cream or an injection. We refuse to believe that this is a normal part of growing older.

There is a bunch more interesting and funny stuff in this documentary. I recommend it. 72 minutes of your life well spent. Look it up on Netflix Instant.

Netflix documentary: "Beyond the Myth" about pitbulls

I recently watched another documentary on Netflix that was a little close to home. It was called Beyond the Myth, the truth about pit bulls.

We all know the controversy about pitbulls and the stigma attatched to them. I`ve heard both sides of the story and I try to remain unbiased, but its just so hard when I have a pitbull at home...and my son is her puppy.
   How can pitbulls be bad if my dog guards my son? She helped him learn to walk, she follows him around the house to make sure he doesn`t get hurt. When we have other kids here she watches them too, laying outside the bedroom and keeping an eye on them. Drake pull her fur, ears, feet and kicks her. He lays on her and puts his hands in her mouth. I have never once been afraid that she would hurt him, ever.

I am a firm believer of these instances being the owners fault. It doesn`t matter what breed, or even species an animal is, its the owner who raises it that way. Same with children. Be a bad parent, get a trashy kid. Its karma, but instead of seeing it that way we panic and ban a breed of dog.
 How would you like it if we banned white people? how do you get rid of them huh? In the movie they rounded up over 400 pitbulls and killed them. Yet if they were people, it would be different, right?

In the beginning of the film there is a news reporter saying "Most of the nation believes Pits are natural born killers."
  Aren`t they all? Dogs are domesticated from WOLVES people. They kill to survive. We bred them down and made them fluffy little lapdogs. So isn`t that proof enough that Pits are no more to blame for this than say, a Pomeranian? Little dogs have much worse personality issues because we spoil them, we treat them like children. Pitbulls are abused, or left outside on chains to be a symbol of protection and nothing more.

The woman speaking grew up around Pits her whole life and tells a story about how she was in college in Texas and wanted to adopt a Pit from the shelter, and was told that they don`t let people adopt Pits, and that they euthanize the puppies even. This was back in 1996.
  She then founded Chako, a rescue for Pitbulls. Today over thousands of rescues exist. If we had the land I would rescue animals as well. Someone needs to save animals from our own stupidity. She runs Chako through volunteers only.

  Then we learn that there is no "Pit Bull" breed. That any dog with a square head, round eyes, and short muzzle can be labeled a Pit. So by that logic it looks like French Bulldogs are Pitbulls? What about an English Bull Terrier? Their heads are ice cream cone shaped.
   Its just like killing the Jews back with the whole Hitler thing. People put up a fuss about a type of dog so we try to eradicate it. We realized it was wrong to kill people based on religion or lifestyle, but its not wrong to kill all dogs with square heads? Dafuq is wrong with us?

 They have comparisons of people being bitten by other dogs and it not reaching the news, and then showing  how every single Pit Bull biting reaches the news.  A law was developed to demand people to fix their dogs if they were deemed a Pit Bull, or a dangerous breed.
 .....shouldn`t we spay and neuter anyway? There are thousands of dogs homeless and in shelters across America. But we are only going to worry about the Pits in terms of requiring them to be spayed and neutered? In my county they spay and neuter your pits for free, so I would have like 7 of them if we had the space lol.

 Without spoiling too much more of the movie I will say this. It makes for an eye opening hour and a half. Some of the things I learned made me honestly believe that everyone is an idiot out there. People need to be educated, they need to educate themselves and see for themselves before they judge any breed. What`s going to happen when they ban all dogs because of fear?

How to watch T.V without cable

About a year ago we moved into this new house (duplex.) We were hit hard as far as gas,electric and bills were concerned. After much struggling and owing Comcast over 500 bucks we decided to cut cable and phone and only keep our high speed internet. We now use 3 programs to keep us constantly covered as far as television goes.

 1. Netflix:
        We love Netflix. I have several sites that monitor potential releases of popular movies and shows, kids shows, documentaries etc so we can watch them as they come out. Our queue is over 250 items long, and we keep adding every time something new comes out. It is very good for kids, lots of educational shows, shows we watched as kids too. They`ve began to add some Disney movies too lately. To be honest we don`t miss the commercials. We also surprisingly don`t miss the dvd portion of Netflix either.

2. Hulu Plus: 
      We started with the free trial of Hulu Plus maybe 3-4 months after we cut cable, just to see how it was different. While the layout and movement is a big annoying, there is a bigger variety of Anime`s on Hulu, as well as current television shows and episodes. The movie section is lacking, though. We don`t mind that so much. We ended up keeping Hulu on and I manage it accordingly, making sure we don`t have the same shows on both.

3. Amazon Instant:
    Tony got a bit obsessed with Amazon this year, and we have ordered some stuff from it for way cheaper than we would have gotten it at the store. He signed up for Prime, which gave us a year of free Amazon Instant, and so far we like it. It is good for movies mainly, but does have some shows that we haven`t found on either Netflix or Hulu Plus such as Dr.Who and Stripperella.

While we do hope other channels come out with affordable apps/programs such as these soon, we haven`t even invested in an antenna because we just don`t miss live television at all. Try it for yourself, we are saving over 100$ a month including the fact that we upped our internet speeds to 50mbps and pay 8$ a month for Netflix and HuluPlus. It really does add up. Also we anticipate that it will save more when Drake gets older because we don`t have commercials trying to sell him stuff :)

We enjoy these programs on our Smart tv and Roku box, as well as the xbox and the netgear box. the whole house is connected with our very worth it Netgear wireless router.