Thursday Thoughts

Last weekend we went to see Miss Saigon. I saw it about 20 years ago and loved it, bought the soundtrack, and frequently listen to it. I've been hoping that the show would return to Pittsburgh and this year, it did. I was so excited but also a little apprehensive because sometimes when you have fantastic memories of something, if you revisit it, it doesn't live up to the memories. I was afraid I might be disappointed. I was not! It was fabulous! I'm not sure of my favorite show, but Miss Saigon is definitely in my Top 5. After the show, we ate dinner at Meat & Potatoes.

We started with:

• Chardonnay and Penicillin (blended scotch, smoked honey, lemon, ginger, ardbeg float)
• Fried Brussels & Fried Pickles
• Waldorf Salad (iceberg lettuce, granny smith apples, pecans, celery, pomegranate seeds, goat cheese buttermilk dressing)

Entrees & Desserts:

• Salmon (black rice, kim chi, cucumber, Chinese sausage, Korean hot sauce, fried egg, ginger scallion relish)
• Pappardelle (bolognese sauce, pancetta, pork shoulder, garlic bread)
• Chocolate Pot de Creme
• Apple Caramel Bread Pudding

It was delicious! And filling. I brought home pasta for lunch the next day. It had a bit more of a kick than I remember it having. I also liked this version of Waldorf Salad. Not a sea of mayonnaise with apples, grapes, and walnuts.

What We're Eating:

• Pub-Style Steak & Ale Pie with mashed cauliflower
• Slow-Cooker Lemon Chicken with rice & steamed broccoli
• Dessert: Leftover snacks like M&M's, popcorn, etc.

What We're Watching:

• Movie: Ad Astra. SP saw this in the theater but I hadn't yet seen it. I liked it a lot even though I kept peppering him with science and space questions. I know Brad Pitt won his acting Oscar for Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, but I thought he was terrific in this.
• Movie: 6 Underground. A Michael Bay movie on Netflix starring Ryan Reynolds. Ridiculous. Implausible. Hilarious. Predictable. Lots of action. So much fun to see the stunts. What a ride! Much easier to follow all the action than other Bay movies. It did not require any brain power, made us laugh, and held our attention as we tried to guess what preposterous action would next occur.
• Movie: The Good Liar. Helen Mirren & Ian McKellen. We both really enjoyed this film.
• Movie: Booksmart. Mostly I wanted to see Kaitlyn Dever. She was fantastic in Justified as Loretta and in Unbelievable as Marie Adler. It's a fun film though I felt really old.
• Our normal TV shows.
• I watched Survivor last night for the first time in years. I don't know who more than half the winners are. But I remember Boston Rob, Amber, Sandra, Pavarti, Ethan, Yul. Sadly, one of the people I was cheering for was voted out.

What I'm Reading:

• I read The Guards by Ken Bruen. This is the first in the Jack Taylor series. I liked it more than the most recent one in the series (the one I read first) because his odd style of writing didn't bother me as much. It didn't take me too long to read it, but I'm not sure if that's good or bad?!
• I finished Some Danger Involved. I think I'll continue reading this series. I already requested books 2 & 3 from the library.
• I cancelled/decided to not renew two of the magazines, Saveur and Bon Appetit. Lately I've not found much of interest in BA plus it seems like they Tweet/Instagram/Facebook everything in the issue before I receive my issue in the mail and that annoys me so much because I pay for it and because I've been a subscriber since 2004. As for Saveur, they've reduced the number of issues to 4 a year and they've made the print small enough that I have to find my glasses to read it (also a complaint about BA). I only need my glasses for reading and even then, not always, but the font size is so small that I can no longer just pick up an issue and read an article for 5 minutes or so. I have to go find my glasses. I know, first world problems.