Meatless Monday

Meatless Monday is an international campaign that encourages people to not eat meat on Mondays to improve their health and the health of the planet. Reducing meat consumption by 15% (the equivalent of one day a week) lessens the risk of chronic preventable illness and has a strong impact on the environment.

A couple of months ago I saw a tweet from Olivia Wilde (Marissa Cooper's lesbian fling, or if you prefer, Number 13 on House) that mentioned #meatlessmonday. Intrigued, I looked it up. The above sentence is all it took to convince me to give it a try. I've always said I'd be a vegetarian if I didn't like meat so damn much. This was a way for me to at least have some sort of impact- if not the full impact vegetarians have- on the environment (and my health [those of you that know my family history know I'm doomed]). Vegetarians, I respect you...

...and I'm learning what you eat.

What started out as "breakfast for dinner" and "I'll just have a salad," has quickly escalated to spinach-basil pasta with yogurt sauce and homemade lentil burgers with potato salad.

The latter, being last nights meal. Denny, Lauren and I (you see, they have joined me on this endeavor) made these burgers from scratch-



No, that's not the picture from the recipe- that's the picture of my burger. Looks good, right? I'll tack the recipe onto the bottom of this-

After an hour of cooking, the three of us sat down to our burgers and had one of the most fun dinners I can recall having in a while. Maybe it was the wine (it was definitely the wine), but we laughed like it was no bodies business. Meatless Mondays.... bringing friends together since June. Sure, cooking dinner does it, it doesn't have to be meatless but this is a fuckin' adventure people. I made burgers OUT OF BEANS. Invite friends over. Experiment with food. Laugh like its nobodies business. and maybe help out the environment while you're at it.

Anyone have any amazing meatless recipes to send my way? Here's mine-

Lentil Burgers

3 Cups Green Lentils
1 Cup Whole Wheat Bread Crumbs
1/2 Teaspoon Sea Salt
5 Eggs
1/2 Diced Onion
1 Diced Carrot
1 Diced Tomato
Garlic to Taste
Pepper to Taste
Thyme to Taste
Spinach as Topping
Sliced Tomato as Topping
Ranch Dressing as Topping
Cheese as Topping (We used Mozzarella)

In a large pot, boil lentils until soft. They're going to need to be blended or food processed, so make sure they're not hard. Drain the water and put the lentils, eggs, salt, garlic, pepper and thyme into the food processor. NOTE: We tried using a blender and were only moderately successful. Might be because my blender is crap. Might be because a food processor works better. Anyways, we ended up blending/forking/spooning the lentil eggs mix until it had the consistency of a hummus. There were still some whole lentils for sure, but they made for a great texture. Place in a large mixing bowl and add the onions, carrots and tomatoes. NOTE: We didn't use the tomatoes last night. This is something I'm adding to the recipe because I think it would make the burgers a little bit juicier. I could be completely wrong on this.... Moving right along- mix that up and then slowly mix in your bread crumbs until the mixture is of a consistency that you can form patties out of. Make your patties (ours were too big... err on the smaller side) and then place in a frying pan with oil. We seasoned each side with a garlic/herb seasoning. Cook 7 minutes on each side until brown on both sides.

Place on a bun and garnish with spinach, tomato, ranch, and cheese. Serve with wine (duh.)

Enjoy.

Trailer Analysis: The Social Network

If there is one thing I know about, it is social networking. I love my blog, my facebook, my twitter. Hell, I still I love my myspace (in a nostalgic type of way). I've been social networking since xanga (but you don't get the link to that, nice try). But enough about me-

David Fincher's trailer (the real one, not the teaser) for The Social Network has hit the Internet today. Let's take a look shall we?

Find the trailer here: The Social Network.

The trailer is presented as a series of status updates accompanied by the voices of actors reading them. Not very cinematic, but the movie can hardly be expected to be visually stunning. Its the type of story that might make for a better play.

This clearly means theres nothing interesting to show in the movie.

There is a definite feeling of drama amidst the founders (or those who can be presumed to be founders based on the trailer) of facebook. Who said what, who stole what from whom. It's the story of invention and court. A relationship drama. Sounds a lot like Flash of Genius. Look at how that did (you don't have to, I'll tell you: TERRIBLY).

Film is a visual medium and while it might have story, The Social Network, does not have visuals. Maybe stunt casting people like Justin Timberlake will put young people in seats, you see- aside from it's lack of visual appeal (that isn't the actors, I'll admit they're er... visually pretty. No, not you Jesse Eisenberg) there is another fundamental problem with a drama about facebook-

People my own age (aka The Facebook Generation) do not care about dramas. Very few people, in fact, care about dramas. So why would a movie, whose primary audience should be facebook users, gear itself for those looking for more distinguished dramatic fare (often, but not limited too, older people who know nothing about facebook). Maybe I'm being harsh on the elderly, maybe I'm being harsh on people my own age- but look at the movies in the marketplace- how many are dramas skewed for younger crowds?

Interestingly, the movie is placed in the "history" genre on IMDB. While facebook will be history, this movie will hardly make a historical dent.

The Relevance of Twitter

Twitter, whether you like it or not, is relevant. It is also a hell of a lot of fun, but more on that later.

I didn't much understand the importance of twitter until recently. I enjoyed it, don't get me wrong - where else can you berate your friends with your humor? Where else can you win free screenings (I did, by the way - win tickets to a Paramount screening of Paranormal Activity)? Where else can you @ your friends? Twitter is a lot of fun for writers and for people who like to hear themselves talk. I am both of these things.

But relevant in my business? I never would have really guessed. Sure I would have stood by twitter and said "you can follow companies" to try and make it seem like something more than Facebook - but really, what did I know?

And then the Hollywood Fringe Festival happened. Hash tags (more in a bit) popped up like mad. #HFF from everyone associated and tweeting about the festival. And it worked. Suddenly we were bound. We could find and follow each other. We helped each other with costumes. We advertised our shows. We discussed venues and shared rehearsal pictures. We whored out the reviews we wrote (well.... I did). We were, in a sense, a mini online community. The festival was spread out, but twitter brought us together. I "met" other artists and writers and reviewers on twitter and then met them in real life. And it's not weird at all.

Hell, I got my job writing for the LA Theatre Review because someone posted it on twitter. Twitter makes things happen.

Reasons you should believe in twitter:

1) Like Myspace in the end, people want followers. Where in Facebook I will only accept friend requests from people I know, twitter allows you to follow anyone (whether they follow you back is another story entirely) but once following - you can mention (@) them in your tweets. It is much easier to connect to people you don't know yet, effectively building up your network, on twitter.

2) Hash tags (#LAThtr) instantly connect groups. Sure people tag things like #fail, but it works to unite communities as well. The LA Theatre scene has started to utilize twitter because of it's successful contribution to the fringe festival.

3) Jobs get posted on twitter. There are users you can follow that post job openings. You can follow people in the industry who might tweet job openings. Believe me, it happens. Just the other day I started following a woman (@cindymariej) who shares career advice to her followers and offers a weekly mailing of entertainment job openings.

4) As I mentioned before, you can follow companies on twitter. They post about what they're up to and what they want to be up to. I'm following every studio on twitter, and while it's often shameless self promotion of their latest action film, there often are tweets about the inner workings of the company as well. People hear things on twitter. It is often quoted. Hell, half the Emmy nominee reactions were quotes pulled from the nominee's twitter account.

5) In a world of instant news, twitter is the fastest. Earthquake? You'll know about it on twitter. Prop 8 trial won't allow cameras in? How about a live tweet from the courtroom. It happened and let all of us interested in the trial capable of following it (and not when its days old news).

So there you have it: my love letter to twitter. So the next time someone tries to tell you its just a string of status updates, slap them in the face with my blog.

And follow me on twitter - @marcusbkaye.